Dark Wolf Adrift

by Aimee Easterling

  Honestly, I was a bit relieved not to be sucked back into the werewolf way of life. Sure, I’d need to find another method of keeping myself busy if I didn’t jump on Stormwinder’s offer. But I had some funds saved up and a hankering to see the world. Maybe I’d find a quiet wilderness area and change into lupine form, leaving both human and shifter concerns behind. Maybe I wasn’t really cut out to be anything other than a wolf.

  But before I could hang up, the cultured tones that I so vividly remembered rang clear and cool through the speaker. “Stormwinder here.”

  In person, the older male had seemed powerful and suave, yet still definitively dangerous. Now, though, Stormwinder’s warm voice suggested he was honestly glad to hear from me.

  Or maybe he was honestly glad to hear from someone else. I hesitated, suddenly unsure what I’d meant to say when I initiated the call.

  After all, what good would it do to throw my dilemma into Stormwinder’s lap? Our recent dominance contest had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the older male wasn’t strong enough to overcome my inner wolf. What made me think he’d be any more capable of keeping my monstrous side in check?

  Still, Stormwinder was clever even if he wasn’t my match otherwise. Rather than waiting for me to spit out words that seemed unwilling to form on my tongue, he spoke quickly and crisply into the silence.

  “I’ll have a bus ticket waiting for you at the station,” the older male said. “And my secretary will be in touch with directions to my club in the near future. I’m glad you called.”

  I hadn’t spoken once. Hadn’t accepted the job. Hadn’t asked about benefits or duties. Hadn’t even said my name, although Stormwinder had probably gotten that information from caller ID.

  Instead, I was left with the sound of a dial tone ringing in my ear and with more questions than answers running circles through my mind.

  Was diving straight out of one chain of command and into another what I really wanted?

  And who, after all, had been the winner of that recent staring contest?

  For all my cockiness, I was pretty sure the victor hadn’t been me.

  Chapter 11

  When we met for the second time, Stormwinder’s respectability stood out in stark contrast to my barely veiled bloodling nature. He’d left me directions to a private gentleman’s club...and not the type my team mates liked to frequent, either, where the term “gentleman” was a euphemism for “guys who like to see naked girls wriggling around on a pole.”

  No, this club required a tie for entry, which the snooty maître d’ supplied in my case since I’d been forced to turn in my dress uniform along with the rest of my gear the day before. The shred of silk looked strange sitting two inches above the ratty collar of my faded t-shirt, but who was I to complain? I was used to the stipulation of donning an entirely unnecessary human uniform.

  Stormwinder required no such fashion assistance. Instead, when I sniffed him out in a private nook way in the back of the attached restaurant, the older shifter was trim and elegant in a three-piece suit. His slightly graying hair was slicked back with scented gel, reminding me that I needed to buy a brush if I planned to let my own buzz cut grow out. And the smile my dinner partner graced me with held none of the hints of wildness I’d seen on the faces of recent outpack shifters.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” I said, dropping into what appeared to be an antique armchair. I spared a momentary thought for whether or not the creaking contraption would bear the weight of an ex-Navy EOD tech, but mostly I was wondering about Stormwinder’s motives. What did he have to gain by inviting a nearly unknown shifter into his territory and offering to treat me to a meal and a bunk? And why had he handed over his business card to a random bloodling in the first place?

  I’d mulled over the same issues for hours during the long bus ride from shore to foothills, a journey that would have been considerably shorter if not for the hours stuck in a bus station halfway in between. The best I’d come up with was that Stormwinder had taken some sort of a shine to me when I’d chosen not to tear him to shreds in front of his kin a few days earlier.

  Now, though, as I took in the power emanating from my companion’s square shoulders and the ease with which he moved through human territory, I wasn’t so sure I’d judged him correctly.

  “Thank you for coming,” Stormwinder said at last, rising from his seat and shaking my hand in an entirely human display of greeting. He’d delayed his salutation just long enough that I was forced to mimic a jack-in-the-box, popping right back out of the chair I’d so recently settled into. I eyed my companion askance, trying to decide whether this was just another shifter power play.

  But Stormwinder’s face was cordial, his scent vague and unassuming. So I shrugged off my suspicions and instead returned his squeeze just firmly enough to satisfy my companion’s sense of manhood yet not so hard that I’d be the one presenting a challenge.

  With alpha werewolves, you could never be too careful.

  “So,” Stormwinder said, sinking back into his chair. He paused to shake out a white linen napkin that he then proceeded to drape across his trouser-clad lap before continuing. “I hear you’re out of the Navy. What’s next?”

  Rather than answering his question, my mind got stuck in a loop trying to decide whether to mimic the other shifter’s actions. The last time I’d eaten in a restaurant, Stooge had used the napkins—paper, of course—to sop up the grease pooling on top of his one-dollar slice of pizza. But there didn’t seem to be any harm in pretending my stained jeans needed to be protected from whatever greaseless victuals this fine-dining establishment offered. So I followed my current companion’s lead and slid the thick white fabric across my dirty knees.

  The pause also gave me time to collect my thoughts. Just by coming here, I was effectively throwing myself on Stormwinder’s mercy since he knew as well as I did that I’d spent all night in transit for the sole purpose of meeting him. Given that show of weakness on my part, I figured I might as well let it all hang out.

  “I’m done with the Service,” I explained, “but I’m sick and tired of beating up on pups in the civilian world. I was hoping you’d tell me more about that job you were offering. Or maybe you could just steer me in the right direction to find a place where I can hang without a pack.”

  That wasn’t the whole truth, of course. What I wanted more than anything was meaning with a capital M. The Navy had spoiled me, giving me a reason to wake up every morning that transcended my own personal wants and needs. But the chances of finding such a ready-made purpose in the civilian world seemed pretty slim, so I figured I’d focus on the bare necessities instead.

  Food. Shelter. Not turning into a cold-blooded killer.

  Now, I held my breath, hoping that Stormwinder wouldn’t take my words as an admission of defeat. The endlessness of shifter dominance battles wore on me, which is why I’d never confided in another werewolf before this. Meanwhile, my current companion was just strong enough that he might think it was a good idea to try to get a jump on my wolf when faced with the first sign of weakness, in which case I’d be forced to slap him down.

  Literally.

  Sure enough, the older shifter eyed me consideringly for far longer than the moment I’d spent fiddling with my napkin. He took a sip of wine, his nostrils flaring as he savored the aroma of the beverage and enhanced his tongue’s ability to report on the complicated flavors. Then his eyes crinkled up into an honest smile.

  “How about joining my pack?”

  Despite my relief that Stormwinder wasn’t planning to go belligerent on my ass, I immediately shied away from his response. The notion of clans had confused me ever since I’d been raised by a female wolf amid a band of stray dogs. We’d had fun hunting together, sure, but my gut said there was more to pack than that...especially after Mom dumped me on her two-legged relatives as soon as I discovered my human feet.

  Add in the ease with which my inner wolf had turned against our human partner and I was even m
ore queasy about the idea of fraternity now than I had been just a few days earlier. So I shook my head adamantly. “No, I’m not pack material.”

  Stormwinder’s gaze landed on my cheekbones, the location just barely far enough removed from my eyes to prevent the gesture’s intensity from kicking us into a battle of wills. He tapped one of the three forks I had no clue what to do with against his wine glass, creating a bell-like tone so hushed that a one-body wouldn’t have even been able to pick up on the sound.

  “The job then,” he said after another long moment of silence.

  I shrugged, not quite as uneasy about the notion of employment as I was about packhood but not entirely sold on the idea either. A job would require spending far too many hours per day doing someone else’s bidding and the idea of repeatedly bowing to another shifter’s demands stung. I guessed I wasn’t so good at mimicking a submissive werewolf after all.

  “Or how about this,” Stormwinder said at last, his lips curving up into the barest hint of a smile. I got the distinct impression that this third option was what my companion had been leading up to from the beginning, but I didn’t mind once I heard what he had to say.

  “You may know that the Tribunal is a body governing all werewolves in the Southeast,” he began, filling in the gaps of knowledge I’d picked up willy-nilly over the years. “I happen to be on that council, and we’re sorely in need of someone to help enforce our laws. It’s not really a job. More of a paid position with flexible hours and one simple duty—to iron out inter-pack difficulties before they explode into outright warfare.”

  He paused theatrically then sealed the deal with eight short words. “We’re looking for someone to keep the peace.”

  Chapter 12

  With that kind of Meaning on the table, how could I refuse? I even let the wily old wolf drag me back to his clan headquarters for dinner. Then I watched in bemusement as his mouse-like wife silently set me up for the night in their spare bedroom...a change of scenery that I soon came to regret.

  I thought I’d made the right decision, though, when I woke atop a well-padded mattress with the scent of frying bacon drifting into my semi-comatose nostrils. Home, my wolf informed me, the first word he’d deigned to offer in quite some time.

  Not our home, I countered. Still, my feet didn’t carry me outside to pound pavement, despite that habitual exercise being an unalterable part of my daily routine. Instead, I found myself drifting downstairs to investigate the tantalizing aroma that had left me with an uncharacteristic smile on my face.

  The scent emanated from the rear of the house, an area that might as well have been a cloistered harem for all the notice Stormwinder had taken of it when giving me a tour the previous evening. Hours later, the stairs and hallway between bedroom and kitchen were pitch dark, but a welcoming triangle of light illuminated floorboards and marked the entrance to the latter room as I followed my nose toward the center of pre-dawn activity.

  Just outside the door, a melodious chuckle made me pause, abruptly torn between exploring further and taking to my heels. The urge to flee was a protective instinct born of my recent experience with Stooge and shored up by the conclusion that I could no longer trust myself around weaker beings. Because even though the kitchen’s inhabitants were werewolves, they were female werewolves—softer, more fragile, and infinitely more breakable than myself.

  “You know you want to!” one high-pitched voice rang out, laughter underlying her words. I shivered. The young woman obviously wasn’t speaking to me...and yet she was right. I did want to creep a little closer and observe this hidden world I hadn’t even known existed.

  Despite my shod feet, no one had taken notice of my approach. So I took a few more steps forward until I could lean against the door jamb, hands in pockets as I enjoyed the view.

  There were multiple females present, but my eye was unalterably drawn to the girl who had so recently spoken. Her scent and body language proclaimed her Stormwinder’s daughter and her brilliant blue eyes matched the older male’s piercing orbs in color if not in emotion.

  “We have a meal to prepare,” a slightly older woman chided, but this second chef’s lips were pursed into a not-so-hidden smile. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, the brunette’s scent matched no one else’s in the room. Yet I found the aroma subtly familiar.

  Ah, the son’s wife, I realized as pieces clicked together in my mind. The rest of the females were more easily identifiable as they slid loaves of bread into the oven while pulling together what appeared to be a breakfast banquet. The chefs appeared to consist of all of the ladies associated with Stormwinder’s household: Blue-eyes, a daughter-in-law, two older blood-kin daughters, and the middle-aged wife who I’d met the night before..

  Of these, Mrs. Stormwinder was head hen, lording it over the younger females with a kind eye and an iron fist. The quartet rotated around the older woman like attendants feeding and guiding a queen bee, although in this case the young shifters were instead in charge of chopping fruit, scrambling eggs, and putting the last of the day’s baked goods into the oven.

  It made perfect sense...and it made no sense at all. How could this vibrant, cheerful force of nature be the same shy, retiring woman who had served us dinner the night before? She’d avoided all of my conversational sallies at that time, merely smiling and nodding at every pronouncement her husband made.

  Then, I’d assumed Stormwinder’s wife was painfully introverted. But now I wondered whether there might be something more malignant at play.

  My legs were itching to stretch and run, but my hand won out instead. Tapping gently on the door frame by way of announcing my presence, I was rewarded when four pairs of dark eyes and one pair of blue immediately swiveled to take in my unexpected form.

  Just as quickly, the dark eyes all dropped to the floor leaving Blue-eyes alone to meet my gaze.

  She wasn’t the one to speak, though. Instead, Stormwinder’s wife greeted me with her head bowed and her voice as timid as it had been the night before. “Good morning, Mr. Green,” she told the floor. “Are you hungry? We can make you an omelet, a pancake, anything you wish.”

  Beside her mother, Blue-eyes smirked at me, tossing long blond hair over one shoulder and capturing my full attention. Her scent was enticing, her curves delicious, but most of all I liked Blue-eyes’ spunky spirit. I found myself unintentionally mesmerized and entirely unable to look away.

  “Mr. Green?” the older shifter prompted when I didn’t respond in a timely manner. Mrs. Stormwinder’s neck swiveled up ever so slightly so she could peer up into my face between dark lashes.

  “You can look at me,” I told her, then expanded out my statement to include the rest of the women in the room. “You can all look at me.”

  They didn’t, though, and my wolf stirred angrily beneath my skin. Stormwinder had appeared so controlled and polished the day before. But was that just a facade he trotted out when attempting to reel in outsiders? Was he really an abuser within his own home?

  Scout the perimeter before determining your plan of action. My CO’s remembered voice eased my own abrupt anger, although my wolf was still growling beneath my skin. Neither of us knew exactly what was going on, but diving into the issue like a bull in a china shop wasn’t going to help.

  Unfortunately, while I couldn’t leave with the issue unresolved, I also didn’t have the foggiest clue how to broach such a touchy subject. So I stood there with my mouth opening and closing as I ran through various potential words and rejected each in turn. Not my greatest moment by any stretch of the imagination.

  In the end, it was Blue-eyes who put me out of my misery. “They’re showing you respect,” she explained slowly, as if to a child. “They bow their heads to honor the power of your wolf.”

  “Angelica.” Her mother chided. Mrs. Stormwinder’s attempt to shush the upstart faded, though, once she saw I wasn’t annoyed by her youngest daughter’s tone of voice.

  “And you don’t respect the power of my wolf?” I asked the girl
, smiling slightly. I liked this Angelica with her supreme disregard for what I was now fuzzily recalling was a relatively common—if unsavory—characteristic of more traditional shifter packs. Females were required to bow their heads and avert their eyes in the face of powerful males.

  The practice gave me the heebie-jeebies. However, the cheerfulness of the women prior to my kitchen invasion suggested Mrs. Stormwinder and her offspring saw no harm in the tradition.

  Angelica wasn’t quite brave enough to answer my question head on, but she did raise one eyebrow by way of assent. “Are you hungry, Hunter?” she asked, emphasizing her use of my first name.

  Stormwinder’s daughter was a flirt, and I had to admit she was adept at captivating male attention. Still...by my estimate, Angelica was also roughly eighteen years of age.

  “I’ll eat later,” I told Blue-eyes, knowing my words were also being taken in by the sea of dark heads tilted earthward. “Right now I’m heading out for a run.”

  THE MILITARY-MANDATED morning constitutional had always been my favorite part of any day on base. Jogging in human form wasn’t quite the same as running four-legged through the forest, sniffing the air in search of deer trails and pouncing upon the occasional field mouse. But stretching my legs and pushing until sweat streamed down my chest and back was definitely an effective second best...and far more socially acceptable within the human world.

  Here in Stormwinder’s werewolf enclave, I probably could have donned fur and enjoyed the freedom I was so sorely craving. Still, I was uncertain about the guesting rules that governed those passing through the claimed territory of an alpha shifter. And I also wanted to maintain the focus of my human brain in order to mull over the female puzzles who had landed in my lap that morning. So I kept on my shorts and shoes and simply ran.

  By two miles later, I was already in the zone. The sun was starting to rise behind my back, the dim silhouettes of trees all around resolving into limbs and leaves rather than mere outlines of their vegetative forms. I’d long since decided that any father who created a girl like Angelica couldn’t be abusing his womenfolk, and after that I’d allowed my mind to drift backwards to the memory of sharks and bombs and other thrills.