by T. F. Walsh
“Here’s what you’d better hope: you’d better hope when I ask Izzy what you did to her, it doesn’t piss me off. I don’t like where I’m picking up her scent on you. You’d better hope this plan works because if you hurt her for nothing, you’ll be dealing with me on top of Thomas. And you’d better hope come tomorrow Thomas is still Alpha because if he’s not, you’d better run. Got me?”
Gerome spluttered and choked on whatever slush he’d undoubtedly inhaled, but didn’t convey anything like an answer. Curtis drove his knee upward and the man wailed.
“I didn’t catch that,” Curtis said.
“I’ve got you. I’ve fucking got you, so get the fuck off. You’re going to pop my goddamned balls.”
“Impossible when you’ve yet to grow a pair,” Melinda quipped. She stood very still on the sidelines. Battle lust sparkled in her steely eyes. All their Wolves slavered for freedom. They needed direction.
Curtis cast Gerome aside and jumped up. Assessing their surroundings, he laid down the law.
“Pick all this shit up, Gerome.” One his hands and knees, Gerome scowled over his shoulder at Curtis, but didn’t argue. “Hang it from the trees, bushes, wherever, and keep east.” Curtis faced Melinda. “You know what to do.”
Lin dipped her head in acknowledgement of the non-question and shot off to the west. Keeping his eyes on Gerome while the subordinate wolf scuttled off, Curtis finally gave himself over to Clear-Skies and they ascended to their largest form. One thing he knew for certain: the old pack was no more. What he didn’t know? If he could forge new bonds and lead whoever didn’t end up dead.
Chapter Twenty
Anger burned through Izzy’s fear like sun through early morning fog. Anger brought clarity, stability, and determination. She sat in the center of the cabin’s front room and seethed. The cuts Thomas made — he’d sliced her other arm after Gerome and Curtis had left to mark the porch with her smell — were painful, but shallow. Terror had aggrandized her perception while face down on the kitchen counter. What had felt like a flaying slash was, in reality, a relatively neat incision. Considerate of the Alpha. She sneered at the man stationed beyond the open front door.
Outside, Thomas braced his hands on the wood beams framing the porch steps. Every so often his head snapped in one direction before he relaxed and continued his surveillance. Werewolf senses seemed preternaturally keen in or out of wolf form. Once, when the Alpha had left the porch to make a perimeter of the cabin, Izzy had shifted, uncrossing and re-crossing her pins-and-needles plagued legs, and Thomas had appeared in the doorway, scowling at her. She didn’t think he’d been anywhere near the cabin’s front and the floorboards hadn’t complained with the repositioning of her weight, but he’d heard. Since he was there, she’d requested use of the bathroom, which he’d granted. He did not, however, grant her use of a sweater or pants. Blue with cold, her fingers and toes numbed, smarting when she tweaked or flexed them. Her extremities mottled with a tracery of red webbing, alligator skin, her mother called it.
If Rapid doesn’t come soon I’ll die of exposure. Izzy listened to the click-clickety-click of her chattering teeth. She curled into a tight ball. Nothing she did stopped her shivering. Without a fire or space heater and the front door wide open, the cabin had turned into an icebox. Her core froze and everywhere that wasn’t cut or battered (or completely numbed) ached bone deep. What she wouldn’t give for Nook’s warm fur.
Or Curtis’s.
Izzy giggled, the laughter as uncontrollable as her shaking. Thomas hissed for her silence and, while her hysterics quieted, her throat and gut spasmed with painful mirth that eventually subsided. All her feelings for Curtis hadn’t diminished with her rage, they had complicated. Everything was a mess. The soft pink glow of her compassion and care and desire for him tangled in a mass of strangling, black briars. How could she still care about him? He’d lied to her, set her up. He’d let Alan die.
Orders, Izzy. He was under orders.
Yet somehow, Curtis had surmounted the smothering weight that now bore down on her vocal chords. She could not best Thomas’s will, and trying hurt. Force, like creeper vines, constricted about her throat when she attempted speech. She leveled a fierce gaze at the pack leader. Because of him, her brother was dead. Curtis wouldn’t have used an innocent man’s life as a strategic chip in battle. If Curtis had been Alpha B.A., he wouldn’t have ordered Alan’s death.
Would a competent pack leader rely so heavily on the spiritual leashes binding his pack to himself? Didn’t a good leader encourage loyalty and autonomy? Thomas didn’t deserve the power he wielded and if Izzy got the chance, she’d take it from him. Exactly how she’d accomplish that feat she didn’t know, but plotting her revenge kept her mind off the cold and the bloodthirsty wolf bent on swallowing her whole.
The sky was pink and orange before the first, faint howl carried on the still air.
On alert, Thomas craned his neck and stared westward. Rosy light skimmed his profile. The rest of his body, like the porch, was shadow. A second howl joined the first, then a third. Izzy’s heart knocked her sternum on its way to her throat. They were coming.
Howling broke into barks and snarls. They were close, very close, if Izzy could hear that. Porch-side, Thomas peeled off the first of his clothes when a high-pitched yelp cut off the vocal posturing.
“Shit.” He jumped out of his pants, kicked off his shoes, and changed. Izzy hoped it hurt like hell. Hoped he never got used to the pain. He stalked inside the cabin on all fours in his largest form, his coat the same black banded gray as Gerome’s. White breath plumed from his black nose and his hackles rose. Pausing as he passed Izzy, he sniffed at her scabbed over left arm now chapped with cold, and terribly itchy. A swipe of his paw knocked her down and opened fresh slashes in her skin, drew blood.
A ragged scream ripped from Izzy’s lips. The Alpha’s control over her voice had lifted with the alteration of his form. She made a mental note of that and nursed her battered arm, heedless of the pain her jointed fingers caused. Her prosthetic hand came away red and tacky.
“Fucker,” she said and bared her teeth at the massive wolf, who paid her no mind. He occupied himself licking her blood from his fur and claws. Pacing to the back hall, he went up on his hind legs and hid himself in the shadows. From the forest’s direction, the crackle and snap of branches and a pattering gallop over the icy dunes signaled Rapid’s approach.
Darkness, not a wolf, shot over the blue shadowed snow. At top speed, Rapid was a black blur of teeth and fur. He was so swift Izzy didn’t have time to shriek when he bolted through the cabin door and shot straight for her. Not until Curtis crashed down on top of him, landing the mad wolf inches from her reddened and prickling toes, did she claim the wherewithal to cry out. Rapid snapped at her feet, confounded by the silver wolf sprawled astride his back. Stringy ropes of saliva looped and flew from the black wolf’s jaws.
Izzy crab-scuttled away from the brawling pair and her flight fed Rapid’s frenzy. He rolled beneath Curtis, bucking the silver wolf from his seat. A sharp kick of his hind legs caught Curtis’s jaw and chest and tossed him back. The silver wolf crash landed near the open door and did not get up.
“Curtis!” Izzy screamed.
Regaining his footing, Rapid made a speedy appraisal of the living area and found his prey. He leapt at Izzy and — while her brain screamed no, no, no! — her body reacted. Shooting up, her right arm blocked what little it could of her face and upper body. Rapid knocked her flat. Back and skull cracked against the hardwood floor and flashes of green and pink exploded across her vision. She bit her tongue, tasted copper. The black wolf bit into her fake arm and yanked at it. Straps from her harness twisted and pulled, pinching her breasts, lifting her off the floor. Jaws crushed her prosthetic. Plastic shards pelted her cheeks and shoulders. Again she stared, transfixed by those same yellow eyes from her past. A curious calm de
scended upon her with the understanding that this moment might be her last. She observed the scene of her death with a clinical detachment.
Above Izzy, Rapid mangled her prosthetic, teeth grinding the steel skeleton housed in silicone-sheathed plastic. The metal armature squealed when it bent out of shape. She dropped her head back. Thomas towered behind her from the cover of the hallway, features serene as he oversaw the inevitable carnage, majestic as a king.
Had he watched Alan’s death as he watched hers? She railed at his indifference. She wouldn’t die. He couldn’t order her to give up. She would get out of this and when she did, somehow, Thomas would pay. Thoughts of vengeance rolled through her brain like storm clouds when Night’s-Rapid-Water started dragging her.
Ruined prosthetic clenched in his jaws, Rapid spun Izzy around on her back — her feet now pointing toward the bedroom hall — as he retreated to the front door. Her T-shirt, the collar strangling her, rucked up and the floorboards chafed her back. Her boxers caught on an old nail and tore. She had to slow him down, but there was nothing to grab. She had to get out of her harness.
Izzy had mastered the art of one-handed life, and she snaked her left hand under her shirt and found the fasteners first at her shoulder, then at her chest. Her deadened fingers worked the plastic buckles with practiced efficiency. At once, she came free and, unprepared for the abrupt loss of resistance, Rapid stumbled. Like a stretched rubber band, the harness snapped back and blinded him, its black back pad and straps smacking his face.
As Izzy scooted to the kitchen counter, Curtis, struck dumb by Rapid’s kick, came to and flew up from his crumpled position. He careened into his ex-pack mate’s side and knocked him over. Finally taking action, Thomas charged from the hall and joined his Beta in combat.
Back against the cabinets, Izzy intended to clamber up and swipe a knife from the counter, but a freezing line of metal butted her backside and distracted her. She discovered the fire poker sandwiched in a gap between counter and floor. Rolling out the poker, she clutched it, eyes darting to the writhing pile of muscle and dark fur in front of the wrecked sofa and to the two wolves stalking the felled beast they used to call friend. The floor bowed under their collective weight as the pair converged on their prey.
For all his speed, Rapid couldn’t match the strength of Alpha and Beta. The Clydesdale-sized wolf seemed to intuit this and bolted. Rapid barreled through his former pack mates, yipping when Curtis’s claws raked over his backside. The Beta’s stunted lunge couldn’t prevent the mad wolf’s escape, but Curtis wouldn’t give up. He loped after Rapid. The sprinting pair tossed up bits of the TV and disemboweled sofa stuffing as they fled the cabin. Izzy had survived her third encounter with Rapid. In the middle of her exhalation, a feral grunt reminded her she wasn’t alone. The Alpha now had her all to himself.
Chapter Twenty-One
Thomas didn’t come for Izzy right away. He waited, one ear cocked toward the door. She watched him, numb fingers squeezing the fire poker that rested heavy against her thighs. This wasn’t over. Rapid was supposed to gobble her up. Maybe Thomas thought his old pack mate would make her death quick, devour her on the spot with the scent of her blood driving him like a drug. The Alpha hadn’t considered whatever higher logic Rapid had cultivated during his human years would surpass the ravening predator’s instinct. The wolf, though mad, had understood his vulnerable position in the cabin and had tried dragging her away. Perhaps he’d wanted to get her to a safe spot, a dark hole where his feast wouldn’t be interrupted. Curtis had put a stop to that and had thwarted Thomas’s efforts to keep his claws relatively clean. She knew the Alpha wouldn’t let her go, so she wasn’t surprised when he started across the devastated front room.
Using the poker as a cane, Izzy pushed herself standing and brandished the iron rod at the Werewolf in a shaking hand. Unlike Rapid, Thomas was in no hurry, but she knew he would catch her if she ran. No point in running. No point in fighting really, other than pride and no wolf could tear that from her, so she stood her ground. A silent prayer flitted through her mind for her parents and a slimy, slithery thing like a gob of congealed blood hawked up her throat when she said, “Fuck you.” That gelatinous thing invisibly leapt from her mouth with her curse. A power all her own struck Thomas center mass and the wolf halted, tilting his head and sniffing. Formidable wills weren’t regulated to the spirit possessed, it seemed, and he didn’t come any closer. A foot away from her, he reached out a massive, splayed paw and she swung her weapon with all the strength she had.
The poker clipped Thomas’s paw and banged his flank. Reverberations from the blow traveled up Izzy’s arm and her aching fingers throbbed. It was all she could do to hold onto the rod. She’d likely hurt herself more than she’d hurt him. Growling his agitation, the Alpha knocked the poker from her and his left paw engulfed her throat.
• • •
The fight ended in a blink at the edge of the forest, finished with a snap of bones and a spray of blood. Flopped at Curtis’s paws, Rapid’s body shrank to its normal size, head kinked at an awful angle, tongue hanging slack from his parted jaws.
Enemy. Stop enemy. Must return. Must.
Curtis’s jaws latched onto Rapid’s neck. Steaming blood ran over his tongue and down his throat. He thrashed the body back and forth, creating a pit in the snow. Their enemy was dead. Still, Clear-Skies slavered for combat. From within his unleashed wolf, Curtis’s view of the world came from the wrong end of a telescope, everything faraway and convexly distorted. The wolf acted upon the world and he was the guiding conscience, a brilliant mote of white light buried under two hundred and seventy pounds of muscle and fur. It was warm in his wolf body. It was safe.
Briefly, Curtis considered Rapid. The wolf, despite what became of him, deserved a better resting place than a shallow space swept in the snow. Going soft upstairs hadn’t been his fault. But Curtis didn’t have time for respect. One threat was gone. Another remained. He and the Alpha had unfinished business.
Kicking snow over the corpse, Curtis howled a warning to Melinda to stay away, to tend to Gerome. Rapid had all but gutted the weasel and he’d need all his strength if he wanted to outrun Curtis. When he finished his battles, no evil — and he considered Thomas and Gerome evil — would walk his land ever again. He’d be sure of it.
With a yipping bark, Curtis tossed up a spray of powder as he galloped from the forest, the yellow light from his cabin’s front door a marker, a beacon drawing him to the final stand.
• • •
Thomas’s clawed fingers constricted. Izzy scratched at the Alpha’s arm and kicked as he squeezed. Her body needed air her gaping mouth couldn’t suck down. Delicate bones in her throat and her windpipe would soon snap and collapse and her head would hang like a lead weight pinched off in a tube sock. Something acidic flushed her nasal cavity. Cold air stung her dry, bulging eyes. Dark spots blotched her sight of the Alpha. A high whine whistling in her ears almost obliterated a distant howl lilting like a dirge.
A violent jerk jostled Thomas to the left and he dropped Izzy. She fell to her knees. Gulping air, she soothed her parched lungs and lurch-crawled to the kitchen counter, barely dodging the bulk of Alpha and Beta as they warred overhead. Curtis had sunk his fangs into Thomas’s shoulder. He drove his leader toward the ruins of sofa and flat-screen, raking the Alpha’s back and sides with his claws before Thomas retaliated.
Izzy wasn’t safe where she was and scrambled for the far corner of the cabin closest the fireplace, retrieving the fire poker just as the Alpha reached overhead and caught Curtis by the shoulders. Doubling over, he flipped his Beta forward, roaring when the hunk of fur matted flesh his Beta had latched onto tore from his shoulder.
Slamming into the wall, Curtis crashed down head first. He rolled over, spat out the piece of Thomas he’d brought with him, and advanced on the gray wolf, evaluating his injuries. The Alpha wouldn’t be taken by surpr
ise. Snapping to attention, he threw himself at Curtis as the Beta sprang and they slammed together like two wrecking balls, hard muscled flesh smacking flesh. Locked in a grappling shove off, their hind paws slid over the floor as each strove for the upper hand.
Thomas lost ground.
Weakened from their fight with Rapid and caught off guard by Curtis’s initial attack, he faltered against his Beta’s strength. Rallying, he tossed his head back and bayed, releasing a blast of power. The silver wolf’s muscles jumped and his fur bristled. His forward drive stalled and his amber eyes flared. The howling went on and Izzy saw it pained Curtis. She also saw him resist the Alpha’s will, muscles cording, fangs gleaming, and foaming spittle collecting at the corners of his jaws. They were at a standstill.
Izzy, motionless in the corner, recognized her chance. If she meant to escape, she had to go now. She dashed for the unguarded front door, keeping an eye on the combating wolves. Neither was distracted by her flight and she passed through the threshold unmolested. Snow-covered lawn stretched before her to the black ribbon of paved road beyond and she was next to naked. Her lips pouted in determination. Frostbite was better than being eaten. When her bare foot hit the first porch step, a squeaking yelp from the cabin zinged up her spine. Reflexively, she turned.
• • •
A human shaped shadow flitted in Curtis’s peripheral vision. Had to be Izzy. If nothing else came of this battle, she, at least, could flee. With Clear-Skies’s strength and speed, he had thought to take Thomas down in one blow, but he’d held his wolf back when saw Izzy thrashing in the Alpha’s grip. That recalculation had cost him. He’d wasted the element of surprise and gave Thomas time to regroup, to strategize, just what the old wolf did best. Of course, the Alpha had played his trump card and had blasted Curtis with the full force of his will.
Thomas’s power over Curtis wasn’t what it used to be, but it was enough. The howled command to back down wore at his resolve like the tide smoothed a stone. His wolf body trembled under the pressure and he had no pack of his own to call on for backup. Howling for Lin and Nettled-Clover would only aid Thomas. The Alpha could control many individuals at once. Curtis was ignorant as to how and if he couldn’t call up more strength, he’d never know.