Gold eyes stared down at her in all seriousness. It’s not the same. But you’re right, Tag or Chase is wrong. My name is Charles. Charles Weston Redding.
The importance sank into her like a clear note. Charles Weston Redding was a real name. His irritation with her was real. This need was real.
India Cafi-Lynn Demos. My parents were a little odd. The words whispered into the magic of the dream world. How did she explain what she was to her dream wolf? This is real, isn’t it?
Yes. He chuckled, the sound rolled through her mind like gentle thunder. Nothin’ about our kind is normal.
We are the same? Her Tag was wolven? The idea notched up her heat another few degrees. Are you still so very lonely? As soon as she thought the words at him, she regretted them. Charles, or Chase as he’d asked her to call him, stiffened. Some of the arousal left his scent. He pulled away. She smelled the irritation. Darn, she’d gone too far and now he was going to leave. No, wait. Don’t go.
Chase turned his back to her, about to slip off into the trees. I have to. I shouldn’t be wasting time here. I have a pack to defend.
India’s breath caught in her chest. Her mind raced, thoughts and impressions tumbled over one another in a jumble. There it was, exactly what she needed. Not the normal wolf she’d been trying to convince to join her little group, but a real protector. A warden. Her instinct lashed out as he faded. Charles Weston Redding! Stay! Chase! Stay here with me. She felt his amusement at her call, faint but clear in his voice.
India Cafi-Lynn Demos. Goodbye, darlin’.
She knew his name. Desperation lent instinct strength and she latched on with the only real power left to a female of her species. To make him her own.
* * * *
Chase woke with a throbbing headache. His skull felt stuffed with cotton and his tongue felt thick and wooly. He climbed to all four feet and tried to shake off the strange feeling. Light was just tinting the sky, meaning breakfast was about to be served soon. He shuffled to the nearest tree, resting his shoulder against the trunk while he tried to make his brain function. His muscles trembled with effort. Frowning, he tried to grasp onto a stray wisp of memory. Had he smelled something before the lights went out. No. He'd heard buzzing before passing out and being thrown into The Forest. Not bees. Pushing himself upright, he wished his thoughts weren’t so fragmented.
He’d seen his Cleo. He remembered that her name was India. His head hurt, forced to pull memories out of nowhere while his body reminded him that he had left the breeding female unfulfilled…again. What had possessed him to tell her his name? More alert, he sucked in a couple of breaths before bending to the task of checking for traces of whoever had drugged him. After a few moments, he set off at a run for Packhome.
* * * *
He was tempted to burst into the kitchen and latch onto his Alpha. Past experience said that his pride would fare better without giggling children pointing out his nudity. By the time Chase finished pulling on a spare pair of jeans and a t-shirt from pool house, his head had begun throbbing with a new intensity. His stomach knotted and clenched in protest. A new tension in his chest that had nothing to do with his physical condition, left him disoriented. He felt as if he’d forgotten something important back in the woods. Like an arm, or his left nut.
Slipping inside the big kitchen barefoot, looking like he’d just run wild through the woods, had just the effect he figured it would. The pups gawked. The adults shook their heads before skinny Eddie, the Omega, snatched the last pancake from the serving plate. With a small noise from Seth, a dark skinned and lean college freshman, Eddie passed the pancake down. Older did not gain rank in Pack structure. Chase’s stomach growled in protest to the tension and loss that was gnawing a hole in his chest. The smell of food made him want to cover his nose and retreat to his lair.
“Dude. You look like you lost your best friend. -Ow!” Blond, tactless, but harmless, Mark rubbed his arm from where his mate smacked him with a serving spoon. “What?” He frowned. “Oh!” Sudden realization made him look down and attack his food with renewed gusto.
Diana laughed and set another plate on the table before stepping in front of him. “Good morning.” Her brown eyes filled with concern when he didn’t grin and tease her as usual. Chase felt awful. Sick in both body and spirit. Diana reached out to stroke a hand over his unshaved face and stopped. Her good humor fled. Her breath hitched.
Chase’s attention drew back to his Alpha male. He still felt a little shaken and a lot unsteady. The room dipped to the left as he lifted his hand. Wolven felt better when they comforted one another with touch. The empty hole in his chest was something that he had to concentrate to ignore. Simple instinct wanted his Alpha to make it better.
Diana’s face shoved into his sight. Her small hands gripped his arm with surprising strength. “Who did this?” she growled. Red-hot fury licked his skin, making him flinch from the Matra Canis’s anger. Her mate swooped in. A strange tug-of-war between the Alphas, with Chase as the rope made the room lurch. Fighting back never occurred to him. Chase stood as still as possible. The Alpha female was his goddess, the alpha male, his god.
One of her small hands landed on his bare chest. Chase could feel her essence seeking the hole from within and the ropes that held him. Pain blossomed inside as she tried to sever the metaphysical bond, to undo what pretty India had done to him. She was trying to take his Cleo away. Instinct more basic than obeying his Alphas raged to the fore, shielding his precious connection to his female. His knees buckled from the pain, undoing him from the inside out. Darkness clouded his mind, warmth and solid security protected his back as he felt his alpha male take charge of his failing body. Chase grasped onto that solidarity and held on.
* * * *
He woke to a tearful rant in his ear. Soft female arms held him tight.
“She can’t have him.” Diana’s voice held all the fury of a Valkeyrie.
“Well, if you try again to undo it, you might kill him. Damn it Diana, what if someone tried to undo our bond?”
“That’s different and you know it, you hairy idiot. I don’t know how she did it, but they’re not completely mated. This can still be undone. Maybe.” Possessive fire filled her tone. “Tank is already gone. I won’t let some stray bitch take my other warden away. ”
Silence reigned in counterpoint to Chase’s groan. There was no embarrassment or remorse to the Alpha female’s statement. He could actually feel her determination to hunt down and rid herself of the rival female. India. “Shhh.” Chase did a clumsy pat on the hands that held him. “Don’t worry darlin’.”
“Shut up and drink this.” He blinked to find a glass of something vile pressed to his lips. Some concoction of Tank’s, he was sure, left behind in case of an emergency. He drank, swallowing past the gag reflex. God, the stuff was nasty. A vile film coated his tongue, but his head cleared a little. His stomach rolled in warning.
“Chase.” Adam’s words made him focus on his Alpha as the wolven leader bent down close beside him. Adam speared a cool glance at his mate. “Diana, you have to loosen your psychic hold so I can check him.”
Wolven are territorial creatures, the psychic females bonded to them even more so. Diana Weis, having ingested the blood of four different wolven in her lifetime was a mostly benevolent and generous woman. Cross her or threaten what she perceived as hers and she became as territorial and possessive as any wolven born. More so, because Chase once overheard the pack psychics, Mack and Bailey, say that had Diana been raised in a true psychic community, she’d have married a Hunter or elder. Thank God for small favors.
“Chase.” He focused on Adam again.
“Hey, boss.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Chase frowned, sure he’d already done so. His head still felt full of cotton, though the drink had chased back the worst of it. “The Hunter or the girl?”
“The Hunter first. You can tell me about your mate after.”
“Huh
? I don’t have a mate.” He shook his head, thoughts and memories tumbling around like rocks in a waterfall. “Was married once. Before. Lissie didn’t like her. It was just another reason to keep Charlie away. Married her anyway ‘cause Lissie made such a stink.”
“Chase. About the Hunter?”
Chase nodded. The waterfall sort of rushed around behind his ears. He was surprised his brain didn’t just flow out everywhere onto the bed.
“Yeah. Hunters came after the werewolves got us. Charlie’s a good kid. Lissie was a bitch, but they didn’t have cut off her head.” Chase nodded again and sagged against the warm female comfort that held him. He turned to face her. Surely, she would know. “Don’t remember wife’s name… nice lady. Pretty, but not Lissie.”
“Chase. What about the Hunter on Packhome grounds?”
Chase didn’t nod again. It might roll off and then he’d have a hell of a time trying to find it.
“A tree with a phone. We were gonna play fetch.” He turned and buried himself in the softness and closed his eyes against the vision of broken body of his small son. “Jus’ wanted to fuck. Married Theo… Char….”
* * * *
India drifted awake to the steady stares of her pack. A nose snuffled her over before the magic of another’s Change tingled over her skin, making her fur stand on end. Her ears flattened against her head as her eyes landed on the culprit. A very human, very skinny, Reggie fell back on his bare bottom.
Without the covering of fur, Reggie looked like a starved, beaten creature. His brown eyes held the brightness of fever and he stank of illness. The wolf part said, ‘leave him behind. He will die anyway.’ Pity bit back India’s warning growl at his disobedience. The mingling of human and wolf prints would be a dead giveaway to the Hunter tracking them. A heavy emphasis on the dead giveaway part. Chances were, their enemy was on the right trail, but why give him conformation.
“India!” Reggie’s voice scratched from disuse. Excitement wriggled through the fading packbond, reminding her of one of the pups discovering their wolven abilities. Secretly, she’d always loved taking the kids out on nature runs. Seeing a child see the world through wolf’s eyes for the first time was a humbling and wonderful experience. India pushed the melancholy away. Dwelling on the past would get them killed. She huffed in annoyance and turned her attention to Reggie and the fact that he’d Changed without permission.
How could she punish someone that pathetic? The remainder of India’s humanity wanted to bundle her pathetic packbrother up and feed him. Reggie crawled over to her, grasping her fur in both fists. “Did you see? What was that place we go to?” He shook his head, gritty brown hair slapping at the patched stubble on his hollowed cheeks. Reggie never would be the kind of male to carry off the sexy dangerous unshaved look. Even at his best, the dangerous part was beyond his Opie Cunningham looks. “It’s not a dream,” Reggie insisted. “We talked there. Talked!”
Giving up on forcing him back to wolf form, she leaned out and licked one sharp cheekbone. The damage was done already. She’d let him talk it out, then get him still and hunt. Reggie, all of them, needed food. She was going to have to hunt something more substantial than rabbits and squirrels. As much as she hated it, she’d have to poach the humans’ cattle.
Despite it all, she felt a certain amount of peace about her future. Yet there was a raw emptiness, as though something vital were suddenly missing. Something she should find and put to rights. She growled at Reggie. He didn’t take the hint to move, so she stood and shook him off. Another quick swipe at his cheek assured him that she wasn’t rejecting him.
Feverish, he didn’t notice that either. The poison that had afforded so many of her pack a fast and painful death, lingered on in Reggie’s body, slowly wasting him away. Not for the first time, she wondered if she should have looked through that dead Hunter’s belongings for an antidote. Reggie gripped at her fur again. “India? Who was he?”
She shook her head, decided, but unwilling to leave. A deer or a calf would leave a clear sign to their presence, but enough nourishment to go on. And Reggie, especially needed so much more than the occasional squirrel and opossum she’d provided. He needed food, a home, safety. Proving the point that at the end of everything, they weren’t animals. Could she give herself to the wolf to secure their safety? The idea of it seemed distasteful after her visit with Tag last night, though she’d Called and tried to lead the normal wolf to them.
“The blond wolf. You always see him in that place.” Reggie’s eyes were bright.
India froze. It was a dream. And yet, she’d heard stories of a place where wolven walked together in their dreams. She wanted to snort in derision. Fairy tales told to the pups at bedtime. At least until Gin had decided that fairy tales were counterproductive to hard work and study. India’s bedtime stories were articles from National Geographic or Science World. And Tag? Her heart lurched in her chest. Her muscles tightened at the thought of her dream wolf. She wanted, no needed, to see him again.
“He’s amazing. I bet that he wouldn’t run from a Hunter. He’d kill anyone stupid enough to try to mess with him.”
She blinked. True. Her Tag…. He’d said Charles was his name. Her Charles was a protector. She felt that from the beginning. India huffed out a breath. Silly.
Staring at the thin male, she Changed back. Pain burned her muscles as they protested the weeks she’d forced her body to try to accept what it was not. Bones shifted, popping into place with a grinding ache she’d only felt her first few Changes. Fur slid away with the stinging of a thousand nettles. Sight blurred, moving into a different color spectrum. India’s breath caught in her lungs. The after-burn of the Change never felt so powerful.
She felt alive, connected to…. Reggie moved into her lap and the thought fled as she ran a comforting hand over him. “Alright, little brother. We’ll stop running. I’ll get a job and we’ll just fight the Hunter if he invades our territory.” Her own voice sounded as rusty as Reggie’s from disuse. She glanced around, for the first time noticing the absence of the rest of her Pack. “Where are Darrell and Gail?”
Reggie froze. His happy smile faded and his thin face took on the haunted, grieving look she was so tired of seeing. He huddled in on himself, afraid of a punishment she wouldn’t dare think of giving. “They left.”
“What do you mean left?” At her question, Reggie shrugged. He looked down, not meeting her eyes. She felt the sob as it rose from his chest and laid a hand on his arm to offer what comfort she could. “What happened?”
“I…I came back. Woke up when we met your friend in the magic forest world. Darrell and Gail left while you were asleep. They wouldn’t let me follow.”
They were gone. Her first instinct was to try to find her missing packmembers. She closed her eyes, trying to find the faint link of a pack. She found Reggie.
Opening her eyes, she stared at him. A pack of two wasn’t a real pack. With no territory to call their own, no one to back them up. They were nothing. Vagabonds, no better than drifting strays or those motorcycle-riding werewolves, the HellHounds. Her chest hurt with the loss.
She and Reggie were strays.
No! India pushed the thought away. She was pack-bred and born. Her father, Gin Demos had been a respected Alpha. India’s grandfather pulled them though World Wars, to be killed in a territory dispute in the Depression. Her great grandmother had kept the pack together during the Civil War. They were survivors.
Reggie moved away. He wrapped his emaciated arms around knobby knees. Shaking his head from side to side, he was the picture of dejection. “They’ll have a better chance without me holding them back. I’m going to die next anyway.”
India reeled in shock. How dare they judge Reggie like that? So long as there was life, there was hope. She searched her memories. Had Darrell or Gail said anything about their feelings?
No, how could they? India had locked them into wolf form, without voice. Her attempts at freeing them from the Hunter looked less and less
promising. They’d objected as much as they dared. She should have realized that eventually Darrell would either usurp her leadership or leave with Gail in tow. Reggie’s rejection was a given based on the poor wolven’s odds of survival.
India struggled to her feet, swaying a bit as her muscles remembered the biped trick of standing, then walking. Her nose to the air, she inhaled orientating herself to smells of exhaust and asphalt. Human scents that would lead her to civilization.
In the distance, the lone wolf howled his song. Suddenly tired of his coy game, India dismissed the normal wolf. Her plans no longer included him, but how she wished Tag were a part of them. She glanced down at her skinny companion. Reggie’s eyes took up most of his face as he waited for her to come to a decision.
Suddenly, India laughed. How the heck was she supposed to adapt to the treacherous human world? Neither one of them owned a stitch of clothing. Or ID for that matter. “Come along. It’s a long walk to the next town. Let’s hope that the psychics think that this part of Texas is too backwater to bother with.”
Chapter Eight
3 weeks later
The Grill restaurant in Frankston, Texas was a study in outdated orange and brown décor. The polyester uniforms looked like something the nineteen seventies barfed up and didn’t have the decency to clean up. The pay was half minimum wage and the tips split between all the staff. For fairness, everyone took a turn at the register and rotated shifts. Benefits included one free meal and Betty the manager didn’t mind if they took the boo-boos home. The Grill’s clientele ran to cheap humans who left almost no tips for the greasy daytime meals and drunks who forgot how to count after the bars closed.
India preferred the drunks. They were a loud friendly lot. Drunks didn’t care that the polyester poo colored uniform hung on her. Her crowd was more interested in sobering up after a night of bar hopping or partying on the lake. The melancholy ones gave her their life story while the amorous ones wanted to take her home. At three a.m., she almost never got the Hispanic or Indie crowd ordering in their native tongue or the pitying looks when she asked them to repeat in English. Oh, how she wanted to bare her teeth at them and tell them that she was wolven, an American wolven, and proud of it.
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