Wolf Tales IV

by Kate Douglas

  “A kid with a big crush on you.” Tinker leaned the shovel against the fence, grabbed the rake, and smoothed over the gravel in the pen. “Of course, it’s easy to see why he’s hot for you.”

  “I think Seth’s at an age where he’s hot for anything female.” Lisa laughed and then shrugged. “He’s a good kid, but he’s awfully immature. The job here’s good for him.” She rinsed out the last water bowl and refilled it. “You almost done? These guys hate being locked up.”

  “Is it really necessary, putting them inside kennels every time you clean the pens?”

  The wolves paced impatiently back and forth inside the indoor kennels. The shadows of their noses were visible when they sniffed under the doors. Lisa sensed their anxiety, but it was a necessary part of maintenance.

  “It’s too dangerous for us to clean the pens with them loose in here. These enclosures are so small, and the only animals we keep here are the new ones. We can’t be sure how they’ll act. It’s different in the big compounds. They’ve got lots of acres to run there, so they don’t have that fear of being cornered. In here, they’re just too unpredictable.”

  Lisa finished up and turned off the hose. Though everything was automatic, water bowls had to be washed daily and each pen cleaned and checked carefully to make sure they were secure and the wolves couldn’t escape.

  “It’s really strange.” Lisa glanced at Tinker with a new appreciation for the plight of the captive wolves. “I keep thinking I’m going to actually know what these guys are thinking, how they’re feeling, before very long. Certainly gives me a different outlook on keeping these guys penned. They should be free and they’re not.” She checked the gates, then glanced over her shoulder at Tinker. Damn. He actually listened to her as if what she said mattered. She felt an unexpected spike in awareness. Was there anything about him that didn’t turn her on? “Once their quarantine is over, they’ll have plenty of room to roam, and even rabbits to hunt.”

  It might not be freedom, but thanks to Mr. Dunlop’s generosity, it was the closest thing. Not many sanctuaries were blessed with as much open space as High Mountain. If only she could figure out how the wolves were getting out—or, if someone was stealing them, who the hell it was.

  Her thoughts kept returning to Hal Anderson. He was always pointing the finger at her. But what if he was the one? She’d run into him out near the enclosures after dark on more than one occasion. He always claimed to be checking on the animals, but he drove a truck. She wondered if anyone had compared tire tracks?

  Lisa stared off in the direction of the main part of the sanctuary, the area where the free-roaming packs lived in their ten-to twenty-acre enclosures, then glanced back at Tinker. “We need to get you into the big pens. The animals there won’t be as stressed, and you might be able to read them. Besides, that’s where the wolves are going missing.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I think so. We have to make sure Anderson doesn’t find out. If I get fired, we’ll never figure out what’s going on.”

  Chapter 5

  A couple nights later, Lisa shivered in the darkness as Tinker scaled the chain-link fence surrounding one of the enclosures far from the main entrance to the sanctuary. She wasn’t cold, not with her cargo pants and long-sleeved shirt to protect against mosquitoes, but fear of someone catching them doing what was so blatantly against the rules had her nerves beyond the edge.

  Night before last, their first night out, they’d almost been caught. She still wasn’t sure why Anderson had been out driving the service road after midnight. Luckily she’d hidden in time, and Tinker had been with the wolves.

  The second night had gone smoother, but Tinker hadn’t learned anything of importance. Maybe tonight?

  Lisa focused the pale glow of her flashlight on Tinker. “This thing needs new batteries. I can hardly see you.”

  Tinker snorted. “Blame the bad batteries on Tia. I got them from her.”

  “I can’t wait to meet poor Tia. You blame everything on her.”

  “Only because she’s not here to defend herself. Actually, I can’t wait for you to meet her. I think you two will get along really well.” He posed in the pale beam, then turned his back, stripped off his underwear, and shook his butt for Lisa’s entertainment. “In fact, you’ll probably like Tia more than you like me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Wait until you see her. She’s gorgeous and she’s hot.”

  Lisa tilted her head and looked at him. Was he serious? “Does that bother you, that I might think she’s gorgeous and hot, too?”

  “Hell, no. Does it bother you that Tia thinks I’m gorgeous and hot?” Laughing, Tinker wadded up his shorts and tossed them back over the fence to her. They’d teased about him snagging something important on the sharp wire at the top. Joke or not, Lisa was glad he hadn’t scaled the fence with any of his impressive parts dangling loose.

  “No.” Lisa shook her head. “Actually, it turns me on.” She caught the warm cotton in her hands and pressed closer to the fence to hear Tinker’s whisper.

  “Touché.” His expression went from teasing to serious in a heartbeat. “The pack must be deeper in the forest. I can sense them, but they’re not close. Will you be okay until I get back? Watch out for Anderson. That dude makes me nervous. I might be gone an hour or more.”

  Lisa nodded and then reached her fingers through the metal links. Tinker pressed closer, until she touched his chest, just above his heart. Her fingers looked so pale next to his dark skin, almost ghostly in the dim glow of her flashlight. His heart was a steady beat beneath her fingertips, and she felt cheated not to be able to kiss him there. Tinker covered her hand with his, then squeezed her fingers, released them, and stepped away.

  His thoughts came into her mind, clear now, as clear as speech. He called it mindtalking. Lisa had never known anything as intimate as the soft cadence of his voice in her mind.

  Just yesterday he’d not been nearly as clear to her.

  Six months in the life of a wolf is a long time, but they have excellent memories. Once I find them, I’ll see if they can tell me anything.

  She nodded, then concentrated on sending her answer to him. Already it was getting easier to communicate this way. More natural and absolutely mind-blowing. A male disappeared from this pen. Full grown and very wild. He was the pack’s alpha. The others should remember him.

  Tinker’s grin told her he’d understood her thoughts. He’d entered a different enclosure last night, but the wolves there had been too curious about the stranger in their midst to concern themselves with his questions. When he shifted, they’d snarled and growled, then gone down on their bellies with ears laid back against their skulls in obvious submission to the huge, black wolf appearing suddenly in their midst.

  Once the wolves had sniffed and whined and groveled, all they’d wanted to do was play. After a while, Tinker had taken off at a fast run with the others on his heels while Lisa waited in the shadows, watching them until they were out of sight. She’d felt the first stirrings of jealousy, watching Tinker run with the wolves. Odd, how she was more jealous of his ability to shift than she was of the mysterious Tia he talked about so often. Of course, Tinker fully expected Lisa and Tia to end up having sex. Amazing.

  She’d still rather run with the wolves! Damn, how she wanted to be there, racing beside him with her great plume of a tail stroking the air behind her. She looked at Tinker now, so beautiful and yet so perfectly male, and felt an immediate response in her sex. Her body pulsed there, a low, slow clenching of muscles suddenly aroused and needy, the quick rush of moisture between her legs.

  Tinker raised his head and his nostrils flared. She heard his low chuckle, saw the thickening in his cock as he responded to her scent. He flattened his palm over its rising length and forced it back down between his legs. I’d better go, or I won’t be able to leave.

  Lisa bit her lips to keep from laughing. Just go. I’ll be fine. She wrapped her arms around her waist and stepped b
ack. Now, after three days and three of the huge pills, after watching Tinker change numerous times from human to wolf and back again, Lisa thought she would be used to the process. She wasn’t. Watching Tinker shift still sent shivers along her arms and raised the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. It was nothing short of magical, from the time he shed his clothing and displayed his truly magnificent body to the swift shimmer of form and shape and the even faster morph from human to beast.

  Just as magical was the sex they shared when he returned. Lisa tried to imagine what it would be like with her own healthy libido ramped up a few more notches from the Chanku influence.

  Impossible.

  This entire relationship, if she could call it that, was magical. Was he the one? The one she’d always dreamed would someday come into her life?

  She’d always believed there was someone, somewhere, who would love her, but she’d certainly never thought it would be a man. Lisa still remembered her first sexual experience—it had been with another girl. She’d been about twelve at the time, her older neighbor at least fourteen but obviously much more experienced. She’d made it special for Lisa, and they’d stayed friends and lovers for years. She still thought of women first when she was aroused, still found herself attracted to women.

  Women were safe. They couldn’t get you pregnant and were a lot less complicated. Even though she’d tried sex with men and even enjoyed a few satisfactory encounters, Lisa had never fallen in love. What was the point?

  Men never hung around for long.

  So why did she think of home when she thought of Tinker? Why did she find herself fantasizing that he actually meant what he said when he promised to make her his mate? He would leave her. Men always left women. Hadn’t her mother beat that into her? Of course, her mother didn’t really want men to hang around all that long. She was married, after all, though Lisa’s father was gone more often than not. Marriage hadn’t stopped her mother from a steady parade of bed partners, including the postman, who’d been in her bed when Lisa’s father finally showed up—this time with a shotgun.

  There’d been blood. So damned much blood, and Lisa had stood there in the doorway with her fist in her mouth to stop the screams, her ears ringing from the blast of the gun. Even now she shuddered with the image of red blossoming outward, covering the walls, the bed, the bodies of the man and woman locked together in passion, linked permanently in death.

  Lisa shook herself free of the memory, took a deep breath, and concentrated on Tinker. She inhaled again, aware of something different. A difference so subtle, she wasn’t sure at first if it was her imagination or something real and physical. Tinker’s gaze locked with hers for a moment. His eyes seemed brighter, more feral.

  Lisa watched his body shimmer and turn, a change that happened in a heartbeat. She sensed feelings beyond the shift she loved to watch and realized there was something familiar about it tonight that left her with a powerful urge to follow. A compelling need, but no map of the way, no clear instructions how to make the switch. It came to her between one heartbeat and another, a feeling so sure and sweet Lisa wondered why she’d not felt it before.

  She wanted to be with the man she was beginning to love, wanted to be like him for all time, but she couldn’t quite figure it out.

  Not yet. But it was close. So very, very close.

  Lisa noticed a strange, crawling sensation under her skin. It felt more like a trail of ants than the expected rippling of muscle and nerves. She rubbed frantically along the tops of her arms, scratching angry red furrows in her dry skin, but it did nothing to ease the itchy, crawly sensation.

  She glanced up as Tinker yipped in acknowledgment and then turned and ran off into the darkness in search of the pack. Lisa stood perfectly still, absorbing the sensation of something beyond what had just happened. Yes, Tinker had become a wolf, but there was more. Some strange sense she couldn’t quite grasp, some new reality just beyond her touch.

  The feeling grew. Her pulse raced, and she realized she actually heard her heart thudding in her chest. She cocked her head to one side and listened for the sound of blood racing through her veins, then grinned at herself. Impossible. This was all so silly and impossible, yet she felt it, the burning energy that raised the hairs on her arms and scalp, the overwhelming awareness of her own body, of the mechanics of this bundle of flesh and nerves and bone that housed the spirit of Lisa Quinn.

  She was rocking now, back and forth on the balls of her feet, alone in the darkness with the flashlight grasped in her hand and her arms wrapped tightly around her middle. She felt as if hours had gone by but knew only seconds had passed. Tinker, now in the form of a beautiful black wolf, ran in what appeared to be slow-motion across the meadow toward the forest—legs stretching out, mouth open—and time stood still.

  Lisa panted, each breath bursting between her parted lips in rapid succession. This was it. This was the dream she’d held, the dream Tinker had offered with his tales of a shapeshifting species and his ugly brown capsules. She felt it, absorbed it, became the moment and recognized it for what it was: the birth of her new life. The first true stirrings of her enhanced Chanku senses.

  It was dark, the moon not yet up, but she saw Tinker clearly beyond the feeble glow from her flashlight, so far across the dark meadow. Time resurfaced. He raced now, full tilt, slipping between the trees and disappearing in thick brush.

  She shook her head in disbelief. Then, hands trembling with the power of sensations like nothing she’d ever imagined, Lisa shut the flashlight off and gasped. Darkness blossomed into stark images, and the world around her burst into life. Stunned, heart pounding, breath hissing faster in short, nervous gasps, Lisa spun in place. Her long hair had fallen loose, and it slowly whipped about her shoulders as she marveled at a night no longer dark, at individual sounds emerging, clear and distinct, from what had been a blended symphony of sound.

  She picked out the croak of tree frogs and knew where they sat. She heard the high-pitched squeak of bats and the sound of their wings on the still currents of the air. An owl hooted, then another, and she knew they were different, how far apart in the woods they perched, knew when one dropped from his branch and soared low over the small meadow where she and Tinker had parked her Jeep. She saw a rabbit bound across the open meadow. Watched it pause, ears upright and swiveling to catch the sounds of the forest. An owl whooshed out of the darkness, but the rabbit was faster, darting first to one side, then the other before escaping into the forest.

  She turned away from the small drama and tilted her head once more toward a new set of sounds. Mice rustled in the weeds alongside the trail, and a snake made a sinister swishing as it passed through the tall grass. When she lifted her face to the gentle breeze and sniffed, her nostrils flared, much as she’d seen Tinker’s flare when he sniffed the air. Now the myriad scents of the forest told her a story. She smelled rotting vegetation where a tree had recently fallen and crushed the plants beneath it. She picked out the spoor of a buck—and Lisa knew it was a buck by the scent. Ancient instincts within her burst to life. Over it all, Tinker’s wolven scent filled her nostrils, and her body stirred, aroused by the primitive need to mate.

  Knowledge blossomed inside her mind, but Lisa remained bound to her two-legged form. Still, she knew it wouldn’t be long now. Understood as well as she knew her name that the changes Tinker had told her to expect were finally happening.

  She searched through this new awareness of her body and realized there was a thing she could do, a conscious act that would release an egg for fertilization, just as Tinker had told her. She searched deeper, hoping to find the means to shift, but that process still eluded her.

  No matter. It would happen. She’d wanted to believe, but it had all seemed so unbelievable. Now, experimenting with the newness of her senses, Lisa sat on a fallen log to wait for Tinker. She felt the stir and shift of her muscles beneath her skin and smiled broadly into a night that was no longer dark.

  She trembled with the need t
o laugh aloud, to shout out to the treetops that it was real. This changing body was proof. Lisa hugged herself, wrapping her hands tightly around her waist as if she needed to hold herself in place or fly off into the cool night air.

  Whatever doubts she had once felt, she now knew for sure she would run with Tinker through the forest. She, Lisa Quinn, her body covered in thick, coarse hair, her tail waving gaily behind her. Feet sure and strong, legs able to carry her for miles, teeth sharp enough to bring down prey or protect herself from harm.

  “Ohmygawd.” Lisa panted, hyperventilating as the reality—the feral power of her new self—sunk in. She pressed her fist to her chest and held it tightly against her sternum where she felt the stretch and play of muscle and bone as she gasped for air. She wished she had a paper bag to breathe into, then giggled, imagining Tinker coming back and finding her sprawled across a rotting log, blowing into a brown paper sack.

  It hurt to sit still, so badly did she want to run and shout and jump with joy, but she’d promised Tinker she’d wait. No matter how hard it was, she would be here sitting on this log when he returned.

  The potential of the new life she’d embraced suddenly overwhelmed Lisa. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and her chest heaved with huge, gut-wrenching sobs. It wasn’t all make-believe. Not a figment of her imagination, nor a tall tale told by a sexy stranger. She was Chanku. A shapeshifter like her sister. Like her brother. Like Tinker.

  A sense of awe washed through her, a reverence for family she’d not experienced in her entire life—along with a new sense of who and what that family was. Her brother and sister shared this amazing ability. Tinker. The rest of his pack. Family. All of them family.

  Lisa glanced up and thought of the wolves in the forest and saw them as her cousins, another branch of her exploding family. She would never be alone again. From a life lived totally on her own, she knew her family now included everyone from her true genetic siblings to her lover to the wild creatures in the forest. Now, after a lifetime of wondering, of wanting something she’d never truly identified, Lisa finally understood all her formless, incomplete dreams and unfulfilled wishes.