Taking the last piece of bacon, the voran slid the plate towards the larger man. “Go ahead, Logan. Even as big as you are, I can’t believe you’re still hungry.”
Charlotte giggled charmingly next to him as she replied, “You should have seen the morning after the big run at the pack house. We needed two houses just to try and feed everyone. The ones making breakfast were eating half before the rest could see the pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles and whatever else they could find. We’d have four or five bags of bread for toast and some just would make sandwiches by the handful.”
Grinning at his sister, Logan added, “Then there would always be Charlotte daintily cutting her pancakes and eggs taking her time like she is now. She’d lose half her plate to marauders and get seconds just to make one plate by the time she finished.”
With a shrug, the dark haired woman retorted quietly, “I just never saw a reason why we couldn’t still act a bit more civilized. We didn’t have to act like animals. Even you held back more than the rest of them.”
Kate used her fork to move her last waffle onto Logan’s plate before leaning against his shoulder looking both tired and stuffed. She contradicted Charlotte in only one matter, “Logan still ate as much as most of them. He was just better at guarding his plate than you were.”
“My sister’s always been more controlled even before turning. She was preparing to become a lawyer and always studied more than she played. As pretty as Charlotte is, she barely dated through high school. I believe she said that there would time for that after she finished law school.”
Kate shook her head and stated, “Then you would be a lawyer and I hear the good ones never have much time for a love life.”
“Well, it’s all changed now anyway,” Charlotte replied wiping her lips daintily with a napkin. As if being reminded, Kate picked up her napkin following suit though perhaps a little less lady like in comparison. “I never finished college and with five years away, I’d never get looked at seriously for law school now.
“Looking back, I guess it was all a waste.”
Nick shook his head, and rebuked, “Having an education is never a waste of time. I’ve been to seven different colleges and attained degrees each time. Building your mind is never a waste.”
Nodding his head, the former doctor agreed saying, “Things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, but apparently you’re with someone who values intelligence as well. So there you go.”
Nick’s phone suddenly rang and the voran pulled his cell from his pocket noticing the incoming number with a bit of surprise, “Eric?”
“Nick, can you come to the house and bring Logan. There’s been an incident.”
“Of course, we were just finishing breakfast. We can come right away,” the voran replied looking at Logan who could hear with his enhanced hearing.
Flagging down the waitress for their check, Kate said quietly, “It sounds like someone might have been hurt last night.”
Logan nodded, but added, “Though incident could mean more than that also. Eric wouldn’t call me back tot he pack unless it was an emergency.”
Paying the check quickly, the four hurried to the Escape and drove a few miles out of their way back to the Beverly area on the southwest side of the city. When they arrived in front of the house, Nick was surprised to see all three of the werewolves’ vehicles sitting in front of the house.
As he passed them heading up the sidewalk, Nick could also smell fresh blood and he thought some new scents were on the air as well. It made him nervous and the voran wondered what the werewolves had gotten themselves into this time. The last time he had found the werewolves injured at this house, they had been attacked by vampires before he had used Marek’s people to draw them away to try and save Lena.
They weren’t even to the door and it was opened by a woman with wild auburn hair. She was one that Nick had met many times and though the werewolf often left her hair a bit mussed, this time she looked like she had run through bushes letting them pull her hair into crazed patterns.
“Hurry,” she said and her blue eyes looked as frantic as her hair as the woman glanced from those arriving to the houses around them checking if anyone noticed.
“What’s going on?” Nick asked as he slowed near the door.
“Not out here. Get inside first,” Aubrey ordered gesturing inside quickly.
Once he was through the door, the smell of fresh blood intensified. It was everywhere and the kitchen to his right looked like a triage center and werewolves were bleeding through bandages as they sat in chairs or lay on the table. The smallest of the wounded, one of the Japanese twins, Sally, was the one occupying the table and she looked to be barely conscious. Her sister was holding her hand crying and never even looked up at the new arrivals.
“What happened here?” Logan asked immediately taking in the injuries and moving to Sally’s aid first as the girl looked to be in the worst straights.
Eric was there already trying to help keep pressure on the wounded leg of one of his men, Carl, if Nick remembered correctly. There were some werewolves he knew well and most of those had been in the primary house. This was one of the men staying in the second house under Eric’s second in command Terrell.
The leader of the werewolves spoke up quickly as he was often one of the calmest in a crisis after his many years as head of the pack. “We began our run and ran into hunters. They had traps and guns. The pack responded in kind after Sakura was shot in the shoulder. Ray took a bullet, while Carl and Aaron stepped on traps they had hidden near a tree with one of the hunters settled on a branch.
Feeling his chest tighten, Nick went into crisis mode at the words even as Logan pulled away the wet, red towel from Sakura, nicknamed Sally. Her shirt was already discarded and another towel over her breasts maintained a level of decency that the wolves often didn’t worry about. Most likely her sister Min was the source of such modesty not wanting to see her sister’s suffering added to while they waited for the only doctor they could trust to come.
Logan assessed the situation saying, “The bullet is lodged deep. It is close to a main artery and probably shifted when she changed back to human. Charlotte, get the bag from the counter, please.”
The man had never returned for the tools of the trade that he had managed to procure over the years. He was once an intern who had nearly achieved full status as a doctor. When Kate came into the emergency room that he had been working at, her nails had dug deep as she had lashed out from the gurney after being mauled by the werewolf who had attacked her. It had ended his career in hospitals, but not his calling completely.
He had joined the pack after Eric found them and had tended the members of the pack as best he could in the situations he found himself. Now that part of him, which was a doctor, took over as he used his enhanced senses to make up for simple tools and the basics of a kitchen.
“What happened to the hunters?” Nick asked as he checked the others. Ray looked surprisingly strong considering he had his shirt off showing a hole in his upper arm and a grazing on the side of his chest.
Eric nodded his head to Vanessa. The woman was his current mate and as much a leader as Jake. The red head led Nick to the living room where she turned the big screen on and flicked the input button. A live view through a security camera revealed a brown haired woman with a torn jacket and a white shirt stained red. Her brown matching pants had an entire leg torn free and scratches still bled from her wounds.
“Damn it,” he cursed even as he started looking at the man beside her looking beat up and bloody. A second man lay face down in front of the cage. He hadn’t survived the attack.
Vanessa noted his eyes and knew that his curse was for more than just the predicament they were in now. “What is it?” she asked curiously.
“I’ve met her before. She’s a park ranger,” Nick noted and followed up by asking, “How are their wounds?”
“Not as bad as Sally’s, but one of the men didn’t make it. When the wolve
s managed to leap up the tree, he was so surprised he fell and broke his neck. Eric would have taken them all hostage normally, until he decided what to do with them.”
“They’re bitten and will change?” he made the question more of a statement understanding how the turning process was supposed to work. Bites were certain to inject the wolf virus into the victim. As long as they were strong enough, they would change into wolves by the next full moon if not sooner. Claws weren’t necessarily a guarantee, but fingers as humans touched faces where the bacteria could sit long enough to be under their nails and transfer the virus. The last way would be a direct transfer from a werewolf’s blood.
Vanessa responded with a shrug.
Taking a deep breath, he asked, “Has anyone checked on them since they were thrown down there?”
The woman shook her head. “If they had killed any of the pack, you probably wouldn’t even be able to talk to them,” she said quietly. “Min will shove her blade through the hunter for sure. He’s the one who shot her sister.”
“The pack didn’t smell them in time?”
“They were down wind and their scents didn’t carry to us. By the time we knew the hunters were there, Sally had been shot. Ray and the others used cover to find the shooter, but you saw the wounds from their traps. They must have expected a pack of wolves and used them as defenses to try and pick us off. I’m not sure why your ranger was there. She didn’t have a rifle, but clipped Ray with a pistol when he charged her.”
Shaking his head at the complete mess the pack had made, Nick said, “You hunted the same area too many times in a row. I found signs of you there months ago and even warned Eric that hunters might be brought in if the rangers became worried over a wolf problem. Now you’ve killed at least one human, and that will bring attention to this section even more. You can’t keep risking being discovered or you will be soon enough.”
The woman’s eyes’ narrowed at him telling her what to do. Only Eric could command the pack and they both knew it. Nick took a moment before asking, “What is Eric going to do with them?”
She shrugged and turned back towards the kitchen dismissively. They both knew this could only end one of two ways.
Thinking to his blood’s ability to remove a vampire’s curse before it could take hold; the voran considered using that to stop these two from becoming werewolves or at least offering the option to Eric. Unfortunately, that didn’t solve the problem that these two now knew about werewolves and could spread the tale. Eric wouldn’t permit that to happen so it came back to just the two options again.
He turned from the screen and the prisoners to see Logan wiping his forehead as he stepped back from Sally. Needle with thread was already in hand. The thread had been cut since he had already finished digging the bullet out carefully to avoid the main artery and had sewn up the wound.
“Make sure she eats some protein and drinks lots of fluids. All her werewolf biology needs now is some fuel and she’ll heal now that the bullet is free. She’s sewn up, so just keep a fresh bandage on her shoulder for a few days.”
The former doctor checked Ray and found that neither bullet had lodged and closed the wounds with a few stitches before moving to those injured from metal spring traps. Such traps weren’t humane and these had been strong enough to hold a bear. Only the strength of werewolves could shrug the injuries off in a few days, and Logan went to work on stitching both men to make sure there wouldn’t be any substantial blood loss.
With his pack in good hands, Eric joined Nick in discussing his captives. “What are you planning to do with them?” the voran asked immediately in spite of the pack leader’s recent hectic morning.
“We can burn the dead hunter and offer the other two a place in the pack after they turn,” the man stated quietly. “As long as no one died in the pack, no one will be determined to kill them for revenge.”
While Nick was glad that the man was at least considering letting them live, even if it was as a pack member; he wished that there was a way to set them free. “Will you be able to keep them from running back to their families? There will be people looking for them.”
“This isn’t my first time dealing with humans stumbling across the pack. Once they realize what they are and not just what we are, people tend to come around. The first time a werewolf turns can be in the safety of a cage or with their family, like Logan’s unfortunate first turning.
“I was able to save Kate when I heard of the wolf attack five years ago in Kentucky. Since I was in the area, I went to her and knew she was a werewolf before she had even turned the first time. Unfortunately, I didn’t know of the intern Kate had passed her infection on to with a combination of the scratch and her blood.
“I only learned of the attack on Charlotte and her parents the day after the full moon in the news. Kentucky hadn’t seen wolves in the state in over a century. The only way a stray wolf shows up is if it is one of us.”
His eyes gave the voran a knowing look. Humans had tried hard to wipe out wolves from a majority of the states where people tended to settle most. When the two tried to occupy the same space, it was the wild life that suffered before man would allow them to attack them.
“She’s a forest ranger,” Nick nodded towards the television. “I met Raina when I was looking for you. Your pack created too much of a mess in the woods and brought the hunters. She probably showed them the sights of your hunts letting them find the best places they could think of to take on your pack. They’ve probably been staking the woods out for a few weeks.”
Eric’s eyes lowered slowly and his voice said that he knew he was being accused, “So I am to blame for taking my pack back too many times, is that what you are saying?”
“If I could find you, even human hunters had a shot when you kept coming back.”
A frown crossed the wolf’s lips and he stated, “I know how to hide my pack. They got lucky, but next month we will have to find somewhere else to hunt.”
The voran nodded as the two looked at the picture of the two humans looking frightened in their cage. “I can go talk to them,” Nick offered.
With a wave of his hand, Eric stated, “Feel free, but do not try to open the cage. We keep them in there until the first change since no one can be sure when it will happen. Sometimes stress and fear will cause them to change early or we will wait until the next full moon. Either way, we can’t let them roam free for fear of what they might do.”
“Are you afraid of them running away and telling people or having them turning into werewolves and killing other humans?”
Eric raised an eyebrow looking slightly amused by the question, “Does it matter which happens? Either way leads to destruction. Now go ahead and talk to your little ranger friend. She may as well know that she isn’t going anywhere.”
Knowing Eric was right didn’t make him feel better, but the voran had been covering the trails of vampires for decades, so certainly werewolves were no worse. Most of what he had tried to keep from human eyes was the death brought by vampires; at least two of the three were still alive even if they needed to join the pack.
Charlotte noticed the two men moving for the basement door and quickly moved to tag along. She had been through several turnings and knew that she was more likely to be of help than Nick despite what he thought he knew. Neither man disputed her presence, so they followed Eric down the stairs.
The noise on the steps brought a pair of voices calling out for help, but no one beyond the basement was likely to hear save for the other werewolves who were used to such pleas. As the sound proofed door pulled closed, even the wolves would no longer hear the two prisoners. Seeing Eric, the two stopped. They knew he was one of those that had taken them; but seeing Nick, the woman in the cage looked shocked.
“Mr. Steel? What are you doing here?” Raina asked while her voice still held fear that made her tremble.
“I was called about an incident in the forest preserve,” he said gently looking over the two prisoners. Their woun
ds may have been a bit bloody though some of it may have been werewolf blood based on the injuries to the four above them, but Nick thought they would survive. Having discovered werewolves, the voran had actually begun looking through some of the newspapers from around the country online. The amount of animal attacks and those who seemed to have disappeared often coincided with either werewolves or vampires. Humans labeled the deaths animal attacks, but he had a feeling many had nothing to do with natural predators.
“We attempted to trap the wolf pack that you were looking for, but instead these... creatures appeared and killed Jack. They nearly killed us as well! Now they’ve kidnapped us.” Sudden realization that he wasn’t moving to do anything brought distrust into her eyes and the woman questioned, “Are you one of them?”
Shaking his head, Nick walked over to a chair beside a table and sat down. “I was searching for them to see if werewolves existed and to find a missing girl.”
“Werewolves?!” the hunter cried looking half deranged from the sights he had seen. “There are no such things as werewolves. Obviously these people use large hunting dogs and captured us to silence us!”
Eric raised an eyebrow as he glanced to Nick. Apparently, the pack leader wasn’t too sure this man was worthy of joining his pack. While few humans took the first days well, to have seen what he had and still refuse to believe, made the hunter less than likely to be a good pack member. If the man went insane from the incident in the woods, the werewolf would simply add the hunter to the bodies being burned.
Nick pointed to the bars of the cage and asked, “Have you noticed this cage you are in now? They put you there for everyone else’s safety as much as your own. You are already infected with the virus, since you were indeed attacked by werewolves.”
Raina looked at her shirt, stained red with blood, and her hands stopped short of touching it for fear of what she would find underneath. “Are you saying that we’ll turn into werewolves too?” she asked as tears began to well up in her eyes.
Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires) Page 19