Wolver's Rescue

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  “Why are you driving in circles?” she asked, suddenly alert as they took another turn. He’d already done it twice, turning down side streets, taking rights and lefts, but always ending up back on his original route.

  “Precaution.” He never took his eyes from the windshield, but a few minutes later glanced at her with a sly upturn at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve always loved that.”

  “What?”

  “That unerring sense of direction. Knowing you’re never lost.”

  Tommie understood what he was saying. She’d always had a sense of where she was and where she’d come from and how the two connected. She never understood what people meant when they said they got ‘turned around’ or lost their way.

  As a little girl, she’d been baffled by a news report of a child lost in the woods. Lost? How could she be lost? When asked, her mother used the story to caution Tommie about what happened to little girls who wandered away from their parents. Tommie’d thought the warning was silly, stupid really, but knew it was impolite to say so. A few years later, she realized the lost child was normal. It was she who was not. She’d never mentioned the ability to anyone, not even Dr. Gantnor, so how did this guy know? Did he mean it when he said he had it, too? She was about to ask when he continued.

  “The other thing I’ve always loved is my ability to track, so don’t think you can use that sense of direction to get away. You have information I need and I aim to get it.”

  “So you’re saying I’ve only traded one prison for another.” Her new captor was no better than Gantnor, just better looking.

  “No, I’m saying that as soon as you tell me where I can find Thomas Bane, you can be on your way.”

  Tommie forced her clenched jaw to relax to hide what she was thinking. Did this guy really believe he could throw her a bone and she’d wag her tail and follow him anywhere?

  The sad fact was that in the not too distant past, she might have. She’d skated through life believing in goodness and trusting that those around her only wanted what was best. Her time with Dr. Gantnor proved how wrong she was.

  She eyed the man sitting next to her. He was big and powerful. She couldn’t fight him. She was too weak to outrun him. She’d have to find a way to outsmart him.

  And the voice inside her that regularly spoke without words, asked, “Why?”

  Chapter 4

  “Nothing to say?”

  She growled, deep in her throat, so low it was almost a purr. If she wasn’t ninety pounds of skin and bone, not to mention rank with the smell of rotting meat and shit, that growl might have made his wolf sit up and take notice.

  As it was, his wolf was pacing, nervously aware of the creature staring out the passenger window. If Bull didn’t know better, he’d think his big brown wolf was afraid of the skinny little thing and Bull couldn’t figure out why.

  She didn’t look like she’d be a threat to anyone. Bull caught the thought and snickered at it. Not a threat unless you were that nurse she laid out in the cage. Watching the little wolver drag that woman across the floor had been a sight to behold and there was a sense of justice to it, he had to admire. He would have liked to have been there when the bitch woke up and found the tables turned.

  It was that more than anything else that proved she wasn’t as close to turning feral as he first suspected. That and the bat-in-a-bag. A crazed and starving feral would have killed the nurse and eaten the bat. Though he still hadn’t figured out how in hell bat spelled friend.

  “Home sweet home,” he said aloud as he turned into the no-tell-motel where he’d taken a room.

  The neon vacancy sign was missing half its letters and the ‘No’ at the front of ‘Vacancy’ probably hadn’t been lighted in years. The working girls who rented the rooms toward the front didn’t seem to mind the seedy look of the place. Their johns didn’t either. Bull parked in front of the end unit that he’d paid for two weeks in advance. In cash.

  No one would be looking for the truck. As far as his coworkers knew, he didn’t own a vehicle, but took the bus each day. They had his picture, though, for his security badge and he was counting on the fact that the guy at the motel’s front desk would rather watch sitcoms than news. It also wouldn’t hurt that he slipped the guy a fifty for the key to the last room.

  The girl didn’t say a word when he helped her down from her seat. She looked neither right nor left as he led her to the door. Once inside, she sat on the corner of the bed, blank faced and waiting. She’d gone from spitfire to unresponsive in minutes.

  This wasn’t good.

  Bull turned on the TV and flipped through the local channels.

  “A double killing at the neighborhood nut house ought to get some play, yeah?”

  They watched for a few minutes, but the girl showed no reaction to the programming or the commercial announcement of a shooting at Sixth and Main, stay tuned to Channel six for the latest reports.

  He watched her from the corner of his eye. He’d seen that blank look before in ferals who knew their time had come.

  The first Primal Law of the wolver species was never let your wolf rule your human. Living with two beings, human and wolf, inside you was tough. The two were often at odds with each other and it took early training and discipline to strike a balance between human and beast. This balance was harder for males because they had more and regular contact with the primordial release that came with running free each full moon.

  Going over the moon was more than shifting from man to wolf. It meant letting go of all the worldly responsibilities that humanity imposed. As a wolf, time and money meant nothing. There were no mortgage payments, no schedules to keep, no bosses to please doing work you hated but needed to survive. As a wolf, you ate, slept, and played as the mood struck you. Your heightened senses became infinitely attuned to the natural world. You became a part of the wind and weather, the scent, sounds, and tastes of nature. You took your position in the natural order of things.

  As a wolf, you held a place at the top of the food chain. To hunt and kill without guilt or remorse brought with it a thrilling sense of power most humans never found in daily life. Most wolvers were content to leave all that behind when they came home to their dominant human lives.

  That’s why they called the shift to human coming home. It was where you were meant to be.

  There were always a few who came home in body, but not in mind. Minor problems were taken care of by the Alpha who had the power of life and death over each and every member of his pack.

  A few of those problem wolvers went rogue. The thrill of the kill became part of their human psyches. As wolves, they killed indiscriminately. As humans, they became psychopathic murderers; serial killers who got off on the kill. Their existence left the wolver species in danger of exposure. These were the wolvers Bull hunted. They were dangerous and the only cure was to put them down. This, he sometimes thought, made him a serial killer too.

  There were others who simply didn’t have the psychological stamina to maintain two diverse creatures in one body. It drove them insane. The problem manifested itself in the display of wolf behavior while in human form. They bared their teeth, made low guttural noises when displeased, and occasionally became violent with the need to enforce pack hierarchy outside the pack. These behaviors were common displays within the company of other wolvers, but absolutely taboo in front of the fully human. If left unchecked, these wolvers could eventually devolve into killers, too.

  Bull hunted them, as well. As long as they hadn’t developed a taste for killing people, he eliminated the problem by removing all humanity from the wolver and forcing them into a permanent wolf state. Bull’s ability to do this was the same power as any pack Alpha’s. Releasing them into the wild carried its own risk, but that risk applied only to the newly made wolf and not the whole species. The feral would adapt and survive, or die. Based on past experience, Bull figured the odds for survival were against them, but the alternative was no chance at all.

  Accor
ding to Eugene Begley, Thomas Bane fell into the second category and it was important Bull find him before he had a chance to move up to the first.

  The wolver female sitting on the edge of the bed knew something about Bane; where he was, or what had happened to him. The first page of Begley’s info packet, which was all Bull ever read, was marked ‘origins unknown’, so there was no place to begin his search. The woman was the only lead he had. He couldn’t decide what to do with her until he had the information on Bane.

  She was in a fragile state and her sudden withdrawal could be a sign of shock. To escape one hell hole only to find yourself in another was one shitty way to spend the day. He got that, but it couldn’t be helped. Not only did she hold clues to Bane’s whereabouts, but she posed other questions that needed to be answered. Like what the hell he was supposed to do with her.

  The conditions he’d found her in worried him. Why was she in that place to begin with? What was the purpose of that cage? Who was the doctor in charge? How much did he know and what did he want?

  If she were a male, he could threaten to beat the answers out of her. He was big and bulky enough so the threat was usually enough, but he’d never minded following through on the threat if he had to. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a male. In the twenty years he’d worked for Eugene Begley, he’d never had to track a feral or close-to-feral female. He didn’t know where to begin.

  Primal Law protected her, and while he didn’t mind bending the rules, he didn’t break them, so beating the shit out of her was a no-go. Which left him with a fucking blank. How the hell do you coerce a woman into cooperating without shouting or raising your hand? He didn’t have a clue. For the first time ever, he wished he had a little more experience with the silly creatures outside of the bedroom.

  He’d learned early on that women didn’t respond well to the I’m-horny-let’s-fuck approach even when it was obvious that’s what they were feeling, too. Women were irrational creatures who liked to play games. To get a woman into bed required a smile, a few winks and a nod, followed by idiotic small talk. A little flattery didn’t hurt either. It was ridiculous, but not difficult. Getting them into bed was the easy part. The hard part was getting them out of it.

  Bull began to smile. Maybe the same tactics would work to get him the information he needed. God knew, she probably got little or no male attention even at the best of times. Smile, nod, small talk, flattery. He could do this.

  He looked at the filthy creature sitting on the bed.

  First he’d have to find something to talk about. ‘Do you come here often’ wasn’t going to cut it. Next, he’d have to find something to flatter. ‘Looking good, babe’ wasn’t going to cut it, either.

  And maybe throw in a little food to sweeten the pot. Her skin was drawn too tightly across her face, but sagged everywhere else, though by the looks of her, she most likely hadn’t had much meat on her in the first place. His first impression was that she was short. Looking at her now, he realized that it wasn’t her height, but her delicate build that made her appear tiny in stature.

  The pinched looked on her face did something to his insides he didn’t like. He had a sudden urge to bathe her himself, wrap her in something soft and warm, and feed her the biggest steak he could find. He shook the feeling off. This was business and pity had no place in it.

  “Why don’t you go get yourself cleaned up a little?” He pointed to the back of the room where the bathroom was located.

  He saw a flicker of interest on her face, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. He tried again.

  “Go on. I won’t bother you while you’re in there and you’ll feel better after a hot shower.”

  She didn’t smile, nod, or shake her head in objection. She showed no emotion at all, simply got up and walked toward the bath, following his order like a robot. He heard the water turn on and, satisfied she was doing what she was told, thought no more about it as he leafed through the stack of menus in the nightstand drawer. He only began to worry when he knocked on the door a few minutes later to ask what she wanted him to order for her meal and got no answer. He knocked again, a little harder and louder.

  “Hey! Um...” Shit! He didn’t even know her name. “Are you okay?”

  He listened to the water from the shower, a smooth and solid drumming against the old metal tub. There was no one in that shower. What if she’d suffered internal injuries during her captivity? What if starvation had finally taken its toll? In spite of her condition, she’d seemed strong, but maybe that strength came from adrenalin and not from her inner core. Had he pushed her too hard? Maybe he should have carried her across the grounds as he had to the truck. Maybe that fragile body had given out and she’d collapsed on the bathroom floor.

  “I’m coming in,” he called through the closed door, giving her one last chance to answer. He turned the knob, found it locked and heaved his shoulder against it. He countered the force of his shoulder with a tight grip on the knob. The bathroom was small and he didn’t want to injure her further with a blow from the opening door. He opened it slowly and met no resistance.

  There was no body on the floor, no body in the shower. There was, however, an open window over the toilet, so small he’d doubted the skinny little wolver would fit through it. But she had. The sneaky little fraud had played him.

  He stuck his head out the window, looked both ways, and saw exactly what he expected to see. Not a damn thing. Fortunately, he had something better than sight. She couldn’t do anything to mask the scent of her body or the dead man’s clothing.

  His escapee had a good ten minutes’ head start, but she was barefoot and weak and unlikely to hitch a ride or call the cops. Either of those could land her back at the clinic.

  Bull stripped off the polyester slacks and poly blend shirt he wore for work and pulled on a pair of jeans and a pure cotton tee. Leather boots replaced the work shoes. Synthetics didn’t do well during a shift and the crepe soles would never survive the change. He left everything else behind except the room key which he hid under a loose bit of pavement when he reached the back of the building. Then he pushed his way through the overgrown shrubs that blocked the view of the business next door.

  Breathing deeply, Bull relaxed his shoulders, dropped his head to his chest, and pulled the force of the moon into his body. The full moon was a few days away, but the call was strong enough and Bull answered it. His wolf leapt with the joy of it.

  Muscles contracted and reformed. Bones crackled as they reshaped. Snout stretched, and short, pointed ears sprouted along with the heavy coat of brown fur.

  The wolf chuffed and chortled with pleasure. His hind feet scuffed at the dirt beneath them. He pranced from side to side in his excitement. The human Bull had to shout to make himself heard.

  “We need to find the spitfire.”

  The wolf snarled, shook his head, and being in control of the body, started off at a run. “Need bitch,” it said, not in words, but in thought. “Play.”

  “No, this isn’t about playing. I need her for other reasons and we need to find her.” Bull forced his will into the wolf. “Now slow down. Use caution.”

  His wolf fought him. It had always been strong, and resentful of the loss of freedom and power he’d had in their younger days, but they were wolver, not wolf, and Bull was no longer a boy. He was already tired and hungry, and fuming at the pint sized bitch who’d made a fool of him.

  “Find stinky bitch. Our bitch.” The wolf grinned.

  Bull gave up. The damn animal didn’t understand. “Yeah, sure, whatever. But she’s only ours until I say otherwise.”

  That seemed to pacify the beast.

  It took a while to find her. The wolf was enjoying the stir he was causing and took every opportunity to stop and taunt every dog that barked. While big dogs were common, wolves weren’t, and even if he wasn’t recognized for what he was, his scent proclaimed him a predator. His presence set the neighborhood watchdogs to howling and a pair of Rottweilers had the boldness to
actually confront him when he leapt the fence surrounding their yard.

  His wolf wanted to answer the challenge and normally Bull would have considered it, just for the exercise, but a fight would only draw more attention. Besides, these were city dogs that didn’t fully understand the power of the beast they were facing.

  “I teach.” While his wolf never spoke in words, his meaning was always clear.

  “Not tonight,” Bull ordered, tired of the wolf’s attempts to delay finding the girl in its search for fun.

  The wolf obeyed, but not without a vicious show of fang. His raised hackles and enormous size made the dogs hesitate. It was the best the wolf was going to get. In a show of contempt, he turned his back and scuffed his hind legs as if covering scat. Without looking back, he trotted across the narrow yard and leapt the chain link into the next yard.

  Bull spotted his prey a few minutes later, a walking scarecrow limping southward in a way that told him she knew where she was headed. She had a safe place, a den somewhere. If she was rogue, she might be living with others, including the elusive Thomas Bane. She might even be mated to one of the renegade wolvers.

  His wolf snarled at the idea. “No! Want!”

  “This is not another tail for you to sniff. We need her,” Bull replied automatically, but when the wolf sat and refused to budge, he didn’t argue. He was too busy trying to remember if he’d caught a whiff of male wolver among the many scents that covered her. He didn’t think so and he didn’t think she was marked by another male though he hadn’t looked too closely.

  The thought of inspecting her body for such a mark aroused more than a passing interest. That she might be marked by another, and therefore off limits to him, was infuriating and it seemed to anger his wolf as well.

  “It’s business, nothing more,” Bull assured his wolf as well as himself. Whether she was mated or not had absolutely nothing to do with his worry or concern. It was only the possibility of a male protector getting in his way that bothered him. Yet the more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. His wolf was aroused by her nearness, too, but its anger came from a different perspective.