Loyal

by Hollis Shiloh

  He and Justin exchanged wary nods, and close looks at one another's IDs. Then I was hustled off by the guy, to go to boarding. His name was "just call me Pete," apparently.

  Justin watched us go, hands on his hips, like he could barely restrain himself from tearing after us and telling "Pete" how to do his job properly.

  Boarding took quite a while, and when we had some boring waiting time with no one standing too close, Pete asked me, "Is he your boyfriend?" He radiated disapproval with the question.

  That made me blink—both the assumption and the disapproval. "No, he's...just Justin."

  "Just Justin, huh?" said Pete, frowning at me.

  I stared back. "What?" I didn't understand what he was getting at.

  "The guy was practically nuzzling you. Looked like he was trying for boyfriend. Or something."

  Something? What the hell did that mean?

  He could see I still didn't get it. Pete made an exasperated sound in his throat. "Look, I've been through his records. A real 'go-getter.' But he went through the program and couldn't get a wolf partner the regular way. Now suddenly he finds you, 'rescues' you, and ships you off to go through the program. After hugging you a lot at the gate. Seems like he's found a wolf for himself another way. You don't owe him a damned thing. Don't you dare feel you're obligated to come back here to him. You have choices, whatever you've been told. He doesn't own you, and you don't owe him a damned thing."

  That certainly painted Justin in a bad light. He was a commanding and decisive sort of person, but that didn't mean he was trying to manipulate me into staying with him, working for the police, right? It was certainly possible, I supposed, although I couldn't help thinking he'd just tell me what to do if that was the case, rather than try to make it happen behind the scenes.

  All of that was a lot farther ahead than I'd been able to think lately. Right now, surviving a day at a time was a big challenge. And Justin had definitely been helping with that. He'd also told me I didn't have to do the work or graduate from this course, just stay safe, so it wasn't like he was trying to push me through the system.

  Justin had turned my life upside down. But maybe it was about time something had. If I still felt ambivalent about leaving my pack, about telling the cops everything I had, there was also a relief in it. I'd never fit there—not really. I didn't expect to fit anywhere else, either, but at least I wasn't trying to drum up loyalty to my pack made up of criminals, and feeling guilty when it got harder and harder.

  "He hasn't said anything if so," I said mildly. "I think Justin would just say what he wanted."

  "He's smarter than you take him for. If saying something would scare you off, he wouldn't."

  I shrugged. It didn't bother me either way. If Justin wanted me around for something, even if it wasn't something I could do, it was at least flattering. Besides, it all felt too far away and impossible right now. We would see what we would see.

  THE COURSE WASN'T HOW I thought it would be. To start with, the bunch of wolves I was thrown into wasn't an established pack. It wasn't any sort of pack. It was a bunch of strangers, wary, hopeful, nervous, excited, some of them even scared.

  Most seemed to be lone wolves looking to find a place for themselves. A few were just looking for mates, hoping to get lucky among all the excellent prospects that came through this place, shifter or non-shifter.

  It did seem to attract a larger than average number of non-straight wolves, as well. I wondered about that, but not enough to ask anyone.

  Nobody took me for straight, which was a surprise. I hadn't been a member of a pack since I was six, before my parents left, me in tow. Dad said it was better—easier, and safer—to be lone wolves, the way the pack was going. But I'd missed it a lot. I was too young to understand the politics and dangers. I just knew I didn't have my friends anymore.

  Then, of course, before I was nearly grown up, my parents had both died. Mom's death was an accident. I'm not sure if Dad's was. I thought sometimes he got a little careless while driving because he wanted to die. He certainly didn't seem to have anything to live for after she died. Even me, unfortunately.

  At any rate, it had been a long time since I was around a bunch of wolves, and back then, I'd been little. It took me by surprise that here, nobody assumed I was straight. They read me—my pheromones, I guess—immediately, and it was an easy assumption the other way.

  Aside from one huffy comment (that there sure were a lot of gays here), nobody acted homophobic, and they certainly didn't act shocked. There didn't seem to be the feeling non-shifters tended to fall into, that a certain "type" was gay and I didn't match it.

  It was a relief to have people know and not care. To not have secrets, at least not that kind. I didn't think I was going to do any sort of dating here, I wasn't looking for a mate, and there was no reason anyone had to know. But I kind of liked it that they did. It made me feel more real, somehow. Less like a cobbled-together bunch of mismatched things that didn't fit who I looked like.

  It also wasn't a secret that I was at the low end of the confidence scale. Even though I was the second largest guy there (a fact that surprised me), it didn't take more than meeting me, or even getting a good sniff, for the other wolves to realize I was no threat to anyone and didn't want any confrontation, conflict, or even to be looked at for too long.

  Fortunately, nobody seemed to be competing in any sort of power structure way. Friendly jostling formed rowdy friendships among some of the wolves, but they didn't bump into or rag on me. People either left me alone or were quietly polite.

  Nobody had to come right out and say "You're a basket case," but I'm sure they all knew. The funny thing was, I didn't feel judged about it at all. I didn't talk about my situation, and nobody—not one soul—pried.

  I gravitated toward the one wolf bigger than me. He was a mountain compared to some of the smaller ones, but only a bit bigger than me.

  Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that all wolves were big. But they weren't. There were plenty of smaller wolves here, pureblooded wolves, but not big. Not like me.

  I hadn't been around wolves since I was a pup, but the pack I'd come from originally was filled with big wolves, so I'd just assumed that I was regular-sized for a wolf, but big for a non-shifter.

  The bigger wolf, Nolan Keiths, took my measure pretty quickly. He let me hang out near him, lean against the wall by him when he was leaning against it, eat at his table, that sort of thing.

  Walls sometimes groaned a little when we both leaned against them—depending on the wall. Brick ones were okay. I felt easier and more settled being around such a strong, calm wolf.

  DESPITE JUSTIN'S SAYING I didn't have to pass any single part of the course, I did actually try.

  I didn't mind the classroom setting as much as I'd thought I would. I'd managed to graduate high school, despite living in the back of the pool hall and running errands for Eddie, but some of it had been pretty hard going.

  In the time since, although I read, it was mostly for enjoyment. I liked escaping into a book, whether it was about the staid English countryside disrupted by a shocking murder, or a nonfiction tome about the history of bananas.

  There were some great books in the world, a good escape from real life, but I wouldn't have considered myself an especially good student, and I knew nobody considered me particularly smart. I was a great student here, but probably because the work was calibrated to be as easy as possible.

  There were no thick workbooks, no heavy texts designed to bring the nervous learner out in a cold sweat, no written tests at all. There were a lot of lectures, classroom participation, coaching, and a few handouts with large print that went over what was covered in class.

  I was pretty sure I'd ended up in the "easy" group somehow, by mistake, but I didn't mind. There was literally no scolding at all, no pressure put on anybody, and an abundance of review and refreshment—and yet some of the wolves still smelled of panic the second they set foot in the classroom.

 
; This was my second indication that I wasn't actually as normal for a wolf as I'd previously supposed. I was not a confident person in general, and the last year or so had taken its toll. But I didn't get scared in the classroom at all.

  I found out later that up to forty percent of the wolves in this group hadn't graduated high school. Some hadn't even attended. A number were functionally illiterate. The reasons ranged from lack of access to good education, being needed at home, not trusting the system, to real issues with a classroom setting.

  I mean, I hadn't found it easy, going to school. Especially if perfume or body spray started me sneezing. But if I could sit near an open window, or away from others, I was usually okay. I'd been able to sit still, and I'd generally been able to follow the texts, even when I didn't understand something the teacher said. All this without any extra tutoring or parental help.

  But where I'd thought I was rather dull and a poor student, apparently I'd done pretty well considering the classroom setting, allergies, lack of home-life support, and no discernable help or encouragement. I didn't brag about it, of course, but realizing I wasn't as dumb as I'd thought made me feel pretty good.

  Anyway, even wolves who could barely get through this easy classroom setting, I wouldn't call them dumb. They were plenty smart, just not all in the same ways—sometimes because they'd had to compensate in other areas to get through life, other times because that's how they were wired.

  It was illuminating to realize I should weigh myself by that same scale: that I was doing the best I could, that I had certain strengths and weaknesses, but I certainly wasn't worthless or dumb because I struggled with some things.

  I was never going to be a strong-willed alpha leader type. But that was okay. I didn't really need to be. I just had to pick good people to be around, so I wouldn't end up doing stuff I hated just to fit in and make them proud of me.

  Some of that probably had to do with my parents. Losing them had broken something inside me. I was too young, didn't know how to deal with any of it, and in a sense I'd just been muddling through life ever since.

  But to the best of my recall, I'd never been a confident, leader-type wolf, even when I was securely in a pack with my parents. I'd always been the quiet sort who tagged along. And maybe that was okay.

  I thought about Justin a lot. I thought about his wanting to protect me, and the way he hadn't expected anything from my going here, except to be safe.

  He'd begged me not to run away—as if I did that a lot, or something. He didn't know me at all, if he thought that. But he seemed to want to, and that was a big deal.

  So many people just looked at the outside and made up their mind. He'd seen past at least some of that. The other cops had been afraid of me, but he hadn't. He wasn't.

  I didn't know if I'd think or feel the same way next time I saw him, if I'd still want to please him, still want him to hug me and grip my neck in that reassuring way of his, but with some distance, and time to think, I could see he was miles better than Eddie or Vance.

  He'd never asked me to hurt anyone. He'd never told me to break the law in any way, never threatened me, never hurt me.

  Even if he was highhanded, I'd probably needed that very much at the time.

  I did feel on a more even keel here, away from it all, around other wolves, observing and soaking in so much in the classroom setting and outside it. I got the sense of what it meant to be a wolf for many of these guys and gals.

  It was mostly men, but there were plenty of women. And, despite the comments about gays, there were more than enough straight folks here to engage in a great deal of flirting among themselves.

  It definitely wasn't only the gay wolves who might want to find a mate. But I guess a lot of wolves are preoccupied with that, a lot of the time. I perhaps hadn't realized how much when I was a pup, because my friends were all pups, and most of the adults I knew were already mated and had families of their own.

  Nolan answered the few questions I had, and the rest I got from observation. It still definitely wasn't a pack, but we all settled in with each other easily, and there was a level of comfort to that which surprised me. Even though I didn't get into it the way some did—shifting, going for runs together, play-fighting and sleeping in warm, furry piles—I got a lot out of the wholesome and friendly atmosphere.

  All these sea changes took place for me pretty quickly. I felt a lot more relaxed and comfortable before the non-shifters even arrived, and we were only there for about a week before they showed up. Apparently that could vary, but their arrival was usually staggered at least a bit, to give shifters time to adjust first.

  We weren't to meet the potential cop partners right away. Certainly not to try to pair ourselves off with them before we'd trained with several, and gotten a good feel for how things were.

  We were told more than once by the instructors that we should not jump into anything. Having no partner was better than choosing a bad one, and desperation, for a job or a friend or anything else, should never be a deciding factor. It shouldn't even make the top ten.

  "Trust your gut," they said. "But try to get to know a number of different people first, before you even consider it."

  Apparently a lot of wolves leaped when they'd barely more than looked. Look at me: I'd given my loyalty to the first gangster who was nice to me.

  Well. Not letting me starve was a pretty big deal...but had it been worth spending most of my life following his orders? I still couldn't answer that for sure, but my gut was leaning toward "no."

  I'd felt so guilty about my disloyal thoughts for such a long time—and then for my disloyal actions, turning against him and following Vance's orders instead. But I was starting to think I'd given both of them too much credit, too much loyalty, and too much trust.

  Would Eddie have killed me? He'd stopped trusting me, that was for sure, and while Eddie had never been the kingpin he'd thought he was, he might not have balked over having me "removed."

  But I bet he never suspected Vance wanted his job, so really, his judgment couldn't have been that good.

  As for Vance... Well. If he ever found me, I didn't doubt he'd at least try to have me killed. Vance held a grudge.

  THERE WERE A LOT MORE non-shifters than wolves. I noticed that right away. We watched them sometimes past the fence, as they took tours of the grounds, worked the obstacle courses, or walked to and from their own classes. This was allowed, although we couldn't talk to them yet.

  Some of us waved, though, and they nearly always waved back. I liked that. I liked the eager way they smelled, too, the fit, strong, hungry willingness to please, the confident competence they exuded. They all seemed to be great at something or other.

  A cute little wolf named Andi got a peek at some of their files, and she reported everything she could remember: who had gotten awards for bravery, who had served a bunch of military tours with distinction, who had made sergeant before they hit thirty.

  There was some pretty impressive stuff: and we still got to pick and choose among them. It was comforting to know that. It was always wolf's choice—and there were more than enough to choose from, more non-shifters than wolves.

  We were running together, Nolan and me, one day, to burn off some excess energy. We were the only ones who could keep pace together easily, and besides, we got along. I certainly enjoyed his company, and he didn't seem to mind mine, either.

  He was a friendly, mellow guy—a lot more confident than me, but not in any way pushy or fierce. He wasn't any more likely than me to get into a fight, or even an argument. We might almost knock over a wall if we both leaned on it, but we were, I thought, pretty mellow guys. At least, I was becoming more mellow. Or trying to.

  "What do you think?" said Nolan. "You have your eye on anybody yet?"

  I cast him a quick, surprised glance. "No. We haven't met anybody yet." Not that I planned to choose a partner, but I hadn't told him that. It seemed easier to skirt around the issue.

  He shrugged. "You can smell 'em,
can't you?"

  Once again I deflected. "Did you smell somebody you like?"

  He nodded, looking happy at the thought. "I think I could work with her," he said. "She smells...good."

  I wondered if this was a mate thing, didn't like to ask. He might just mean her personality and attitude appealed to him, rather than pheromones. Either way, not my business. I hoped he wouldn't be disappointed when he met this paragon, though. Smell can only tell you so much. Look at how good I thought Eddie smelled, for a few years there.

  "So nobody?" he said, looking at me again, seeming surprised by that. "Not one of the guys?"

  I shook my head. "No yet. I—" I hesitated, wondering how much to tell him. "I don't really have to pick anybody, though."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, Justin said I don't have to. I don't even have to graduate. I'm mostly here to learn more about wolves. And cops." That was more than I'd shared about myself thus far, and I wondered if I'd gone too far. I could tell I'd surprised him, that he was re-evaluating some things, running them through his head.

  "So you're a lone wolf. You ain't been around wolves much?" he guessed after a few moments of silent jogging side by side.

  "Yeah."

  "And this...Justin. Who's he? Somebody important?"

  "A cop." I wanted to gnaw my lip, but I'd probably end up biting myself at the pace I was moving. "He...got me out of a bad situation. Wanted me to go somewhere safe for a while and learn stuff."

  Nolan nodded, not pressing for details. I guess it wasn't exactly a surprise to him that I'd been in some sort of trouble. I shouldn't expect him to fall over gaping in shock.

  "But you're not really interested in finding a partner, even so?"

  "I don't know yet. I don't know if I can work with cops at all. But I'm learning a lot already, so who knows?" I sounded upbeat, and was surprised to realize it was the truth. I wasn't faking to avoid an awkward admission. I really was feeling optimistic.