Dirty Wolf

by Aidy Award

  Zara popped her head in from the kitchen. "Those Troika boys know how to kiss. Don't they, Heli?"

  Heli pretended to be inspecting the ceiling under the scrutiny of her accusing older sister. Gal wasn't buying it for a second and a half. "Heli? What Troika brother have you been kissing?"

  It's not like she thought it would be Max. He wasn't like that. Sure he had a bad boy thing going on, but he wasn't a cheater. That left Kosta and she didn't think the two of them even liked each other.

  Heli shook her head vehemently. "No, no, no. It wasn't Max. I, uh, maybe had a drink with Kosta. And maybe we kissed each other's faces off. He does the cutest little growl when he gets all turned on. It's panty melting, let me tell you."

  Huh. She'd had a similar panty-melting experience. "He growls? Max does that too."

  Both Heli and Gal looked over at Zara and stared. Can anyone say peer pressure? Zara didn't fold. Heli folded her arms and stuck out one hip. "Come on, Zar, you have to tell us now. Did Niko do that too?"

  Zara stared right back and pretended she wasn't fazed by the thought of her ex-boyfriend. But she had a tell. She'd always run a finger along her eyebrow like she had a headache when she was uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. "Like I would remember. That was a long time ago."

  "Whatever. I know you spent the night with him right before he left for Russia. A year is not a long time. You know you're going to get back with him when he comes home. Everyone knows you two are destined to be together." Heli didn't waver at all. She added a cock of her hip and a smug look for emphasis.

  Zara rolled her eyes. "Fine. Yes. He growls when he's turned on. It's totally hot and thank you very much for reminding me."

  "Ha. I knew it." Heli pointed at Zara and winked at Gal. "They're so animalistic. I love it."

  Yeah. Animalistic. Like wolves, even.

  Geez. She was being so ridiculous. She just needed to watch New Moon and get this idea of wolf-shifters out of her mind. There was no such thing as supernatural beings and even if there were, they wouldn't be hanging around a town of humans like Rogue. They'd live off in the woods.

  Like in the Reserve.

  No.

  Stop it.

  Enough.

  Eye roll to herself.

  So, she'd seen a wolf. And Max had shown up right after that. And she'd seen him a few minutes after every time that she'd seen him. None of that meant anything except she had a very active imagination.

  "Are you going to see Max again?" Heli was great at deflecting.

  "Are you going to see Kosta?" Gal sent it right back.

  "You know, we're keeping it casual for now. He's got some family stuff going on or something." Heli waved the other two women off.

  Oh. Should Gal be keeping it casual with Max? Tonight felt anything but. Kissing him had been intense and sure felt like there was something more between them than a hook-up. She really didn't want to be wrong about that feeling. She was totally going to obsess and over analyze that tonight while lying in bed. Good thing she had a bag full of romance novels to take her mind off of it.

  Gal plopped her bag down on the coffee table and pulled several books out of her bags. "Did you guys know that vampires and wolf-shifters, and other paranormal beings were a huge thing in romance novels?"

  Heli picked one up and turned it over to read the back cover. "Uh, duh. Where have you been, Miss Librarian."

  "I'm a children's librarian, thank you very much. Not a whole lot of vampires in kids books." Although there was Dick and Jane and Vampires. For real. "I brought some home on recommendation from some of the tweens. I quite think I'd like a werewolf, oh excuse me, a wolf-shifter romance."

  Gal lifted a book with a shirtless dude on the cover and growled. The girls laughed and sat down on the couch with her to look over the books. Someone else growled much more realistically than Gal had.

  She glanced at Heli and Zara, but they were looking right back at her. No one was laughing now.

  "Did you do that?" Gal swallowed even though her mouth had gone weirdly dry.

  Heli shook her head and Zara whispered, "No."

  The front door rattled and the sound of something scraped on the outside. Something that sounded an awful lot like an animal clawing. Was the wolf back? Had it followed her home? Maybe it was hungry.

  Gal put a finger to her lips to tell the girls to keep quiet and then tip-toed over to the window. She stood an inch to the right so she could peek out, but hopefully no one out there would see in. Max was long gone even though she wished he wasn't.

  There wasn't nothing at eye-level, so she dragged her view down to the sidewalk leading up to the door, even though she really didn't want to. A twinge inside of her gut told her what she was going to see. Nope. She couldn't do it. Gal glanced over her shoulder at Heli and Zara who were wide-eyed and horror movie scared.

  Okay. Fine. She had to look. She pushed the curtain a little to the side and took a fast look at the sidewalk. A huge brown flash of fur popped up to the window sill and her view filled up with a mouthful of snarling teeth, dripping with saliva. The wolf growled, low and menacing.

  Gal jumped back, her hand on her heart. It was beating against her chest like a woodpecker on crack.

  This was not the wolf she'd seen before and she definitely did not feel that calming sense of protection. No way. As if it was a cold-blooded serial murderer, the sense of pure malevolence swirled around the beast like frigid fog.

  "Gal, get back. What the hell is that thing?" Zara grabbed her upper arm and yanked her away from the window. She dragged her through the living room. "We should call animal control. Come on."

  The three of them retreated to the kitchen and Zara pulled out her phone. She tapped on the keyboard and huffed. "I can't freaking find a number. I thought Google could find anything. Damn it."

  Heli wrapped her arms around herself. "Its eyes. DId you see them? They were glowing. I don't think animal control is the right organization to call. We need Mulder and Scully."

  They needed the grey wolf.

  The scraping started up again, but this time on the back door, off the kitchen. There was no big window there. Only a little one over the sink. There was no way Gal was climbing up to look again. "Is there more than one or did it figure out where we went?"

  Zara held up her phone and huffed. "I think we should call 9-1-1. I can't find any other numbers besides the line for the sheriff's office and that goes to the same place. Plus this is a freaking emergency."

  Heli nodded vigorously. "Yes, call 9-1-1. Maybe they'll send hot firefighters. That is the only thing I can think of that would make me feel better. Firefighters. With chocolate."

  Gal huddled in close to Heli. "You're just saying that because Kosta is on the volunteer fire brigade."

  Zara punched in the numbers and held the phone up to her ear. She listened and scowled. She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. "Umm, guys. The internet has gone out and I don't have a signal. I always have at least three bars here at home. Check yours."

  Heli whipped her phone out of her pocket, but Gal's was in her bag in the living room. Crap. She waited for Heli to check her signal first.

  Heli shook her head and held her phone out for them to see the screen. "Nothing. No service. No wifi."

  Great. Gal probably didn't have a signal either. Wasn't that one of the first signs of an apocalypse? Werewolves and loss of cell phone service?

  "Come with me. I'll check mine too, but I don't have a good feeling about this." They moved as a pack into the living room. Gal reached for her bag and riffled through it. Allah, help her find her damn phone.

  A knock rapped against the front door and all three of them screamed. A sickly, car-salesmany voice floated in to them. "Come out, little mates. We're not going to hurt you."

  Yeah, right.

  "We're here to save you from the Troikas. They're going to get you girls killed if they aren't careful."

  "Holy crap," Heli whispered. "What is th
is, a mafia shakedown? I don't like it. Not one bit. He called us mates. Are Australians even allowed in the mafia?"

  Zara narrowed her eyes at the door. "Fuck off, you mafioso. You can't scare us with your bullshit. Get your own god-damned goomahs. We're taken and the boys aren't going to like hearing that you tried to scare us."

  Gal and Heli stared at Zara. She rolled her eyes and whispered. "What? Like I haven't seen the Godfather? It doesn't do us any good to act frightened, even if we are."

  Heli nodded, then shouted at the door, "I want you dead, I want your family dead, I want your house burned to the ground! I wanna go out in the middle o’ the night and pee on your ashes!"

  This time Gal and Zara stared at Heli.

  "What? You said we were doing mafia movies. I figured that was better than yelling at Fredo for breaking my heart."

  The three of them listened for anything else from the baddies at the door. They didn't hear any more voices. They did hear a wolf howl. Long and strong and clear as a bell, right from their front yard."

  Heli and Zara jumped back, but Gal stopped them from running. She knew that howl. She recognized it as if it was a person's voice. "Wait. That's...you're not going to believe me, but that wolf is on our side."

  Zara shook her head. "That's insane. Those mafia dudes must have trained that wolf as some kind of attack dog. You were just as scared as we were of it."

  "That's not the same one that jumped up at the window. This one is different. It's nice." Gal crept toward the window, trying her best to see outside without being seen. Please let the gray wolf be out there. Pretty, pretty please.

  Zara shook her head in a million teeny tiny no's. "What are you talking about? How do you know?"

  She knew she wasn't crazy now. She hadn't imagined the giant wolf or that it was there to protect her. No way her friends were going to believe her, but bad guys and their wolf were doing their best to blow this house down. It was either sound crazy now, or later when the gray wolf saved the day and she went out to give it a treat. Like a hamburger. "Because I met it earlier tonight. At the library."

  The pounding came back on the front door and the scratching at the back, this time with much more urgency on both sides. "Get out here, mates. One brother isn't enough to scare us away. Niko can't save you now."

  "Niko?" Zara's eyes went a bit crazy and she put her hands over her mouth. She sucked in a shaky breath and whispered through her fingers. "Gal, what the hell is going on here?"

  The howl of the wolf sounded again, this time so loudly, it could have been in their living room. They all cringed at the growls and yowls of the horrific racket of animals clashing. Another howl echoed from nearby and Gal prayed it wasn't a friend of the mafiosos. The new wolf joined the fight and the din of the battle brought tears to her eyes.

  She'd be sick if the grey wolf got hurt or killed because of her. "We have to do something to help. We can't simply hide in here."

  "What can we do? It's not like we have any kind of weapons." Heli opened and shut drawers and cupboards. She found a paring knife, a pair of kitchen shears, and a handful of marshmallow toasting forks. "This is as close as we've got."

  A loud shriek of pain and then silence stopped them all cold. Oh no. Gal grabbed the toasting forks and rushed toward the front door. She yanked it open and pointed a fork, one in each hand at nothing. There was blood streaking the front step and there were chunks of dirt and scrape marks across the lawn, but no sign of any men or animals.

  "There, look." Heli pointed to the row of hedges their neighbor had across the street. The backside of both a grey wolf and a black one were disappearing into the foliage.

  Zara jerked her head toward the street. The tail lights of a car speeding away really fast, especially for a quiet neighborhood like this one, were visible, but there was no way to tell what kind of car it was or see the license plates. "So what now? It seems like a moot point to call the police. Especially if those thugs are mafia."

  Heli held her phone up. "I've got my signal and wifi back. It's super weird that those guys mentioned the brothers and Niko. I'm calling Kosta. If he's in the mafia there is no way he's getting in my pants."

  "I guess I'll call Max too." There were too many strange things that shouldn't even be in the same reality, much less all happening to her at the same time. The idea of putting the pieces of this puzzle together in the way they looked to be fitting now, made her stomach flip and flop.

  Zara waved them all back inside, but stared off down the street again before she joined them.

  Gal's phone buzzed in her hand and she answered it right away? "Max? I know you just left my house, but can you come back? Something really weird has happened."

  "I'll be right there." He hung up before she could even say thanks.

  "I'm going to go make some tea, or whiskey, or both. You guys want some?"

  "Yeah."

  "For sure."

  "Okay."

  It literally only took Max and Kosta two or three minutes to show up. They were probably at the bar which wasn't very far away. Gal did her best not to act like a damsel in distress, but the ups and downs of tonight had her nerves on their last hurrah and the second he walked into the living room she fell into his embrace and let a few tears fall.

  "Shh. It's okay. I'm sure you could have gotten them with your s'mores forks."

  Gal sniffled and raised the forks she was still clutching in her hand and waved them around. "En garde."

  Heli didn't seem half as rattled as Gal was by the incident. She was jabbering away to Kosta who nodded and frowned deeper with every word she said. They disappeared into the kitchen with Zara.

  Gal waited until they were alone before she asked Max the one question she was worried he would actually answer with a yes. "You know who and what was here tonight, don't you?"

  He stayed silent, but held her tighter and rubbed her back.

  She had to know. "Please tell me it isn't what I think it is."

  "Don't worry, lapochka. We'll take care of it. You won't ever see or hear from them again. I swear it." He didn't elaborate on who they were. "We want the three of you to stay at my mother's tonight. She's got a serious state of the art security system that nobody is getting through. I've already called her and told her you're coming, so there's no getting out of it."

  She really didn't want to sleep here tonight, and there was no way she was letting her parents know what had happened. They would freak and try to insist that she move back home. She'd really hoped Max would invite her back to his place and suspected Heli was going to Kosta's. But they couldn't leave Zara here alone. Max circumvented all of that with his proposal. It made Gal feel better that he'd anticipated what she needed. "I guess that's a good idea. I'll go tell Zara and Heli and grab a few things."

  Slumber party it is. At her kind-of-boyfriend, possibly-just-a-booty-call's mother's house.

  That wasn't awkward at all.

  Max

  Selena shooed Kosta, Max, and their father out the door. “Off with you now. I’ll take care of these ladies, you take care of business.”

  His father may be the alpha, and he the heir to becoming pack leader himself one day, but a smart wolf knew that the matriarch was the one to keep healthy and happy. Still, his mother was not the easiest woman to please and she had never liked her boys’ interest in the town’s girls.

  Max kissed his mother on the cheek and took the opportunity to whisper to her so that Gal and the others wouldn’t hear. “Remember, Zara had a thing for Niko, so don’t say anything to her. We have to find a way to tell her eventually though.”

  Here was the part he was working up to. He swallowed and kissed his mother on the other cheek “And I know you may not approve, but I want you to know that Galyna is special to me, mother.”

  She didn’t say anything but made sure he saw the eyeroll she’d saved especially for him when he pulled away. “I know more about what and who is important than you think, kiddo. Now scram. We’ve got Magic Mike two
queued up and there isn’t anything a little Joe Manganiello taking his clothes off, chocolate ice cream, and mixed drinks can’t fix.”

  Ew. “Mother.”

  She made a face only a mother of all boys would. “I’ve been living with alpha males for the last billion years. I am entitled to some girl time and you’ve brought me the perfect excuse.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Troika, would you rather have gin or vodka martinis?” Gal, already dressed in the cutest heart covered men-style pajamas he’d ever seen, held up two bottles.

  “Vodka, dear. The whipped cream flavored one will go nicely with the ice cream.”

  “You got it.” Gal turned and sashayed back toward the big TV lounge.

  Yes. That’s right. Sashayed, swaying her hips side to side in a way that already had his wolf howling inside. If he didn’t excuse himself to join the enforcers gathering in the backyard he was going to embarrass himself in front of his mother with the giant hard-on in his pants.

  Oh, the dreams he was going to have about peeling that satin shirt open and licking every square millimeter of Gal’s big tits until she was squirming and begging him to get her off.

  Which he wasn’t going to get to do anytime soon. If ever. What he needed now was a long hard run through the woods to clear his head. What he was going to get was another fight. He was ready. The scratch marks all up and down his ribs were almost healed after the fight outside Gal’s house.

  Fucking pussy Grimm’s going for his belly instead of his throat like a real wolf.

  He jogged out to the circle of men surrounding his father. They had seventy-five percent of the remaining pack enforcers here. The others were guarding the women and children gathered in safe houses around town. Normally in a brewing war like this they would have all gathered at the Troika compound, but he and Kosta had changed all the usual contingency plans when they brought the girls here.

  Kosta patted his back, welcoming him into the war council. His father was pacing, his eyes already glowing a bright blue despite it being a new moon. It spoke to exactly how enraged he was. “This human matter throws a huge goddamned wrench in the works. Exactly how many women did those bastards attack tonight?”