Wilder walked into the Mercedes showroom behind the salesman. Wilder wore a black and green flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. Glancing down to see what everyone was glaring at he realized that he had forgotten to place his shoes in his knapsack. Not to be deterred, he sauntered in to the young man’s office. Sitting down in the nearest chair, he said to the young man, “I need to purchase that truck.”
“We have just the car for you.”
“I don’t want any truck. The AMG 65 SUV.”
The dark haired man mumbled, “That SUV is over two hundred thousand dollars.”
“I know. You’ve made the sale if you can have it ready in five minutes.” He threw his black Mercedes American Express on the desk and looked him in the eyes.
“I will need more identification,” the salesman said glancing up.
“I don’t have any. Your time is running out.” The young man picked up the phone and made a call. He described Wilder to the person on the other end, then he said yes, looked at Wilder, and repeated yes a couple of times and hung up the phone. He stood as Wilder watched at him go to a credit card terminal and in a matter of minutes returned.
“Step outside Mr. Samsa and follow me.” When Wilder reached the door, his SUV was setting waiting for him.
The young man handed him his card closed the door and said, “We didn’t have time to wash it.” Wilder smiled and started the truck and took off. He watched in the mirror as the young man balled his fist, jerked his arm downward and said, “Yes!”
***
It took thirty nine hours to arrive in Fairbanks, Alaska. Over two thousand miles from the dealership in Seattle. Wilder called ahead and reserved a plane to fly him to Kaktovik, Alaska. He thought of his son. How could he endure this? But Wilder thought of a young cub. In the time it took him to arrive in Alaska, his son became a yearling, and preparing to become a full grown werewolf.
He knew Bane would be waiting for him. What would Bane do once he discovered that Adrienne was no longer with him? What would he do indeed?
Wilder’s eyes were getting heavy, but he had to drive out to the airport. He had to remain lucid until then. He would sleep on the plane. That would be a short trip only three hundred more miles until he saw his son.
When he arrived at the air field the plane was waiting as well as his crew, which was a pilot, copilot, and a steward. He needed something to eat and a change of clothes.
“Mr. Samsa all things have been taken care of. We called and text your home informing your wife where you are. Wilder stepped on the plane believing that Adrienne knew that Wilder and Hunter were on a business trip.
Robert should have told her by now, Wilder thought. By now she was probably worried and hysterical.
Chapter 6
When Hunter woke it was dreary and foggy. His head felt heavy. His eyes were unfocused. It took a few seconds before he could concentrate and remember what had happened to him when he found himself in a cage looking out like one of his dogs.
He raised his head glancing around and all he sees are bars. The cage is too small for him to move. He’s still in his werewolf form. There was nothing he could do. The bars were made of iron or steel. Looking around he realized he was riding in the back of a van. The cage was being tossed about and he was tossed with it. He looked down to see bruises on his legs. He couldn’t stand and his muscles were locking from being in the same narrow confining position since Bane had captured him.
“What are you going to do with me?” Hunter shouts over the noise of the radio. His is breathing is hard with his nostrils flaring. It’s hard to catch his breath. The confinement is taking a toll on him. He’s angry but he can’t do anything about it.
Hunter then remembers what his father had said to him. “If you find yourself in trouble, and there’s plenty to go around if you are my son, then calm down, and don’t expend too much energy getting angry if you can’t do anything about your condition or dilemma. Use that time to think about how you’re going to change the situation in your favor.”
Those words brought a sense of peace to him and he accepted his plight at that time.
“So you finally woke,” Bane said watching at him in the rearview mirror. “I guess the electrical charge was too much for you. Remind me to adjust it,” he said smiling. “Must have messed with something in your young brain. I thought you would have shifted by now, but it’s best that you didn’t. It would be hard to explain why I have a naked boy in a cage if I had been stopped by the police.” Bane watched at Hunter and laughed out loud.
“I don’t relish looking at you,” Bane said. “It’s a long distance to Alaska.” He shook his head. “You look like your father when we were cubs. You look nothing like your mother. If you looked anything like her, I may have spared you and let you go.” He twisted his mouth.
“Then maybe not.” He laughed again at Hunter’s torment. “It’s better that you look like a large white wolf. I can tell anyone that stops me that I’m releasing you in the wild. I would have to explain too much and I don’t have time for that. I really am releasing you in the wild. The northern part of Alaska.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“It’s because I want the humans to do my job for me. I don’t want to look your mother in the face and say that I killed her son.” Another rough coughing laugh came from Bane. “The humans are having their annual wolf hunt, and I’m going to release you in the middle of it.” Bane threw his head back and let out a loud howl.
“Do you think you will ever get your paws on my mother? And what do you think my father and uncles will be doing once they find out what you have done to me?”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t ask too many questions. Now you’re like your mother. Always wanting to know the why of everything. Well my answer is I’m doing this because I can, and because I plan on having your mother for myself. That is after I kill your father and uncles.”
“That will never happen. He’s too cunning to let someone like you get over on him.”
“You may be right, Hunter, that is your name. Your girlfriend the human you were fucking called you Hunter.” Hunter nodded twice in acknowledgement.
“Well, I’m not like someone like you, who is playing at being a werewolf, and hadn’t been fucked yet. I was sparring with your father when you didn’t exist. I’m not just someone. Your father and uncles know it, and you will discover that soon, little cub. Oh, I forgot, you have officially become a werewolf. You are running with the big dogs now. But that doesn’t make you one as you have proven by being taken and put in a cage.
There is one thing about you Samsas, and that is your Achilles’ heel. You fall in love and your cock takes over your emotions. And no doubt that’s your father’s problem when I stood over his bed as he slept with your mother. The female I want and will have,” Bane says with cold disrespect.
“You appear to have a weakness, too,” Hunter said glancing up seeing Bane’s sharp eyes follow him in the mirror. Concentrating on him instead of the road. Bane’s brow furrowed and formed a V. Obviously he didn’t like Hunter’s comment. Hunter decided to stop stirring Bane’s blood and let Bane speak. He would learn more about the werewolf by just shutting his mouth. But what more did he have to know. This werewolf was treacherous as he was generous when he spared his mother and father.
Hunter realized that Bane would not have the same affection and charity for him. Why would he?
Lowering his head, Hunter remembered the teachings of his father. “Enjoy your young life because a werewolf has a short time as a cub, and a long life as a werewolf. And that werewolf’s life can be froth with uncertainty and peril. You are hunted by man and by your own kind. And especially the Samsas because we are rich and strong. Some werewolves want to prove they are the elite Alphas by destroying us,” Wilder had said to him.
Lowering his head over his paws he went to sleep to conserve his energy and think about Katie. How he would have loved to have seen her one more time. How he would have loved to
take her to the movies, hold her in his arms, and watch at her as she ate popcorn. How would he have loved to see her laugh?
She had an enchanting smile with a full mouth of beautiful white teeth. He thought if she had been a werefemale with a mouth like hers she could hunt along with him. But she didn’t appear to be the hunting type. He liked her because she reminded him of his mother. Long shiny auburn hair a small round face and large green eyes.
What is his mother doing now? Hunter wonders. She’s probably home and by now she has found out about him, and she’s upset. He didn’t want to think about that anymore. He needed to get out of this cage and get back home.
That’s after I’ve killed Bane. He thought.
Chapter 7
Walking into the hospital, tears pooled in Adrienne’s eyes. It was heartbreaking seeing Lycell in bed with tubes hooked up to his arms and a tube running from his nose and mouth with him hardly conscience. Drayton lay in a bed across from him. He had bandages across his wide muscular chest. Drayton managed to open his eyes. He recognized Adrienne’s scent as she stood in the doorway in tears.
The medication Robert had given him was slowly wearing off, and he tried opening his mouth to speak to Adrienne. He tried sitting up but he was too weak. The only thing he could do was to raise his hand to gesture for her to come near.
“We can bring him into the house tomorrow,” Robert said watching at Drayton. “He’s healing quickly but he still needs bed rest,” Robert said adjusting Drayton’s bandage then bending looking into his eyes with a small flashlight. “From what these two have been through, it would take a year for a man in his twenties to heal. Because they are werewolves and in their twenties and strong and healthy, I say no more than four weeks, and they would be able to take a bear down or a moose. But this time, they would have to do it as a pack.” Robert tried to be positive. He made an attempt at humor, which had been lost on the worried look on Adrienne’s face where tears pooled in her eyes.
Adrienne’s emotions written on her face, alarmed Drayton. Her sad eyes staring into space. She stood near Lycell’s bed first. He was still being fed through tubes and his body weight had fallen to half of his usual size. The muscles in his large arms were dissipating.
“I have a therapist coming in everyday for Lycell. That tube in his nose is to make sure he’s getting enough oxygen. It looks worse than it really is. It may be hard for him to stand and walk, the first few days, but he can do it. He’s strong, young and capable,” Robert said. Adrienne leaned over and kissed Lycell and he held her hand tight. He squeezed her hand not wanting to relinquish it, but he did because he was too medicated to do anything else.
Robert wasn’t worried for Lycell and Drayton, he knew they would be fine if they stayed immobile for a few more days. But what would happen if he told them about Hunter and Wilder. They would probably get up and tear their stitches, bleed out and die.
He was the doctor and he made the decision not to tell them and wait a few more days to tell Adrienne. He didn’t want any more failed attempts at trying to rescue Mena. He trusted Wilder because he knew Wilder had a cool head and didn’t let emotions affect his judgement.
Robert was full aware that it wouldn’t do any good for him to go running off to Alaska knowing how much Mena’s father hated him and the Samsas. Besides, Wilder being a werewolf and the head Alpha, would have more influence than Robert.
If Mena’s father was crazy enough to clash with Wilder, there were others who didn’t want to challenge him. They knew what that meant. Banishment to Russia where they would have to spend their lives in terrain harsher than anything in Alaska, where rogue wolves controlled and dominated territories that even Wilder didn’t want to tread into.
It was Bane’s father and brother that had first been banished to Alaska when there wasn’t as many men rushing there for hunting and fishing. But Wilder against the requests of Lycell and Drayton, brought them back to Oregon, and gave them their own pack. And now Wilder wishes he hadn’t made that grievous mistake.
***
Stepping off his private jet, Wilder took only what was necessary to survive. He had to travel light. When he was far enough away from the airfield he shifted into his large werewolf self.
How many years he felt that being a werewolf was a curse. But what was a curse was also a blessing. He broke into a run. It is easy for him to get up to eighty miles an hour. He’s able to sustain that speed for a long period of time. As a werewolf he could out run wolves. They could only manage forty miles an hour.
Lone werewolves could be a problem especially if they are lurking for food. Nevertheless, Wilder knew there wasn’t man or beast as fast as he. He had to stay clear of some animals who had never seen a werewolf and may not be afraid of him. Probably some Polar Bears migrating from the remote north.
Wilder didn’t want to enter any wolves’ territory by mistake because he didn’t want to expend his energy fighting off cubs or yearlings. Although they didn’t have the experience he possessed, if they were in a pack, he could be overwhelmed by them in a group fight.
As a werewolf, now he could hunt for fresh meat, and fresh water wouldn’t be a problem especially now when the rivers and streams were breaking up. But he had to be careful crossing the lakes and streams. He didn’t want to come this far and lose his life through carelessness. He had too much to live for. He had plans for Adrienne when he returned. She would have given birth to Drayton’s pups, and that would leave him to have her pregnant by next year.
Wilder’s plans occupied his mind as he plowed through deep snow. And then he heard what he thought to be a plane. He knew what that meant. Men were in the area and in the sky. When they were in the sky, they were deadly.
From the sound his hearing discovered that it was a slow moving plane. He stopped under a tall pine and looked up at it. He was right. He could see the scope of a gunner reflecting from the sun and the snow, but the gun wasn’t trained on him, it was trained on a large black wolf. He even saw the name of the plane. Bartlett. He knew that company. He had been at odds with that company for years. They would rent planes to cowardly hunters who thought hunting from a plane was sport. He watched at the plane as it slowed down and hovered low and the hunter took aim at a defenseless wolf searching for food.
It wasn’t a werewolf. He could tell right away because werewolves were much larger.
Then the rang of shots firing made a loud definite noise, and an echo from the mountains bounced off the side of the mountain where he stooped, loosening the snow behind him, as he crouched lower at the bottom of it trying to hide behind a tree. He heard every sound, and before he could move, and before he could look up, and get to cover, an avalanche of snow came tumbling down burying him beneath it.
He had learned the way of the wolf and although he was deep beneath the snow, he managed to tunnel with his large paws and make a hole, and there he lay until he thought the plane had disappeared, and the snow had settled. He took that time to rest because he didn’t know what he would face later.
The snow soft and melting from the earlier bright sunlight during the day proved in Wilder’s favor. He found it easy to dig his way out. When he crawled out of the hole, he stood as a white werewolf in a world of darkness. Clouds blanketed the moon hiding its light.
In Nevada Wilder’s brother Lycell had been the wolf who stood out in the winter snow with his black fur, but in Alaska most of the wolves and werewolves were either grey, brown, or black. Now he would be the werewolf that would stand out with his white fur. But he had a perfect camouflage especially if he was caught in the opening by men hunting wolves.
And that’s when he thought of his son Hunter. The curse of his father to have white fur and to be in Alaska. Wilder didn’t have time to think. He had to make it to the compound before morning arrived. Before he would be in the clearing, and exposed.
Running through the night, he stopped to catch his breath when he heard the whimpering of a wolf. Wilder cautiously strode over to where th
e wolf lay under a tree. He wouldn’t approach it because of the obvious dangers of a wounded creature. They were most vicious. But he didn’t want to see it suffer. The animal glared up at him with bloodshot eyes. His lips curled back displaying his sharp canines. He was a young wolf. Only men kill the young. Wolves kill the old and sick.
The men in the airplane had shot him with guns. Wilder saw a trail of blood leading to where he dropped. It was near a cave. Probably his home, he thought. Wilder strode cautiously, amid a warning growl. Into his knapsack he placed his hand and pulled out a fresh piece of deer meat and threw it at him. The wolf caught it in his ferocious jaws and proceeded to devour it quick with his eyes and ears on guard.
Watching up at him, the wolf recognized Wilder for what he is—an Alpha werewolf. Although he ate the food he didn’t trust his kind. After all it is Wilder’s kind that hunts for sport and the werewolves who are taking over their territories, hunting their food, and pushing them out and further north where hunger would kill them faster than man.
Soon they would become extinct.
What these creatures didn’t know was that the werewolves could become extinct before the wolves. If they didn’t find enough fertile females willing to join their pack they may be doomed in a few more years.
That’s what Bane is afraid of and maybe why he wants Adrienne.
Turning away from the doomed wolf, and walking down the mountain, trudging through the soft snow, Wilder managed to make it to the meadow without problems this time. Wilder had arrived at his destination; in the back of Mena’s father’s compound. He saw lights in the house and smoke rising from chimneys. He knew from a visit the year before where Mena would be housed. He had to reach her first to find out where they held Hunter.
He stood looking at the wall and thinking about Hunter with anticipation, and then he leaped up and over it. Landing on his feet crouching low, he peered into a window. There was Mena sitting in a chair nursing one of her pups. The pup was a male Wilder could make out. Mena wasn’t happy. Her face showed helplessness and discontent. There wasn’t a glow in her face and eyes as he had seen when she lived with Robert on his ranch.
Insatiable: Hunter's Moon Book 5 Page 5