by Неизвестный
“Name your terms,” the alpha barked, “then get out. This is still our territory.”
“Not all of it,” Willy said. “I’ll be marking my own soon, and you and your mutts will stay out of it. You also stay away from me and my pack.” Her gaze indicated Cody and Beth. “I keep out of your yard, you keep out of mine. Deal?”
“We need shes,” he insisted. “You’re dooming us to extinction.”
“That’s not my problem. You did it to yourselves. Show a woman respect and maybe they won’t snub you. Even a coyote knows that much.”
“Yeah,” Cody agreed. “Where I come from, we— Hey, wait a minute!”
“Your terms will be honored,” the alpha ground out. “Now leave. You’ve won all you’re getting.”
“One more thing.” Willy swallowed. This would take all the nerve she had left. But she had to know. Her eyes raked the pack, and came to rest on the alpha male. “There’s a possibility one of you may be my father.”
A pudgy brindle wolf in the back got up on his hind legs. He shifted into a fortyish male with honey-gold eyes and a receding hairline. His features echoed the alpha’s, mostly around the cheekbones and chin. “That would be me.”
The alpha whirled on him. “Leonard?”
“Yeah. Me. Leonard. Big Chief’s baby brother.” The man’s lip lifted. “Just because I’m lower rank, you think I don’t have needs? That maybe I wouldn’t want a she and a litter of my own? Wolf law,” he explained to Willy. “Only the alpha gets to breed.”
“Stupid law,” Cody said. “My folk gave that up back in the 1800s.”
“So did most of the packs. Of course, they don’t have to deal with Sheldon the rabid traditionalist—”
“It’s for the good of the pack!” the alpha snapped. “It keeps our numbers low and manageable on a limited range, and ensures only the best—”
He broke off, suddenly aware of the glares turned on him by his followers. “Careful how you finish that sentence, old son,” Cody said.
“Besides,” Leonard said, “I think we all know who the real alpha in the room is.” He beamed at Willy. “Don’t we, Sheldon?”
The alpha sputtered. “She’s half simian!”
“Yeah, I know. Not my first choice. But try to hold a she-wolf’s interest when you’re down the ladder. Anything lower than a beta, they won’t even look at you. The primates aren’t so picky. Treat ‘em special, take ‘em to dinner, make ‘em laugh, dress decent, bathe once in a while… They think you’re God’s gift.” He gazed wistfully at Willy. “At least, your mother did. For a while, anyway.”
Willy had trouble taking this in, in spite of her resolve. “Why did you leave us?”
“Why do you think? Mixed marriages are tough enough, and when you start mixing species…” He shrugged. “I tried to stick it out—we don’t abandon our cubs, as a rule—but your mom started getting nervous. Afraid I was going to bite you or something. I don’t imagine my running loose in the woods once or twice a week helped anything. Finally she kicked me out. Said she’d developed an allergy. Yeah, right. So I went crawling back to the pack. I couldn’t bring you with me because of the ban on non-alpha-sired pups.” The look he speared at his brother held a lifetime of bitterness. He looked back at Willy and the bitterness vanished. “You would have been two or three. I don’t suppose you remember me at all.”
“No,” she admitted, with a sudden, surprising sting of regret. Alarm hit just as suddenly. “Except…I do remember, when I was really little, we had this big dog …” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
He smiled. “You used to pull my ears.”
“This is all touching,” the alpha snapped. “It’s also a clear violation of pack law. It’s bad enough you revealed yourself to a simian. But then you got a cub on her.”
“An alpha cub,” Leonard clarified. “Bet that’s what’s really got your hackles up. Right, Shelly?”
“That warrants expulsion,” the alpha persisted. “You’re out of the pack and banned from our territory. Trent, Wallace, escort this beast beyond our borders.”
The two who’d been guarding Beth only stared at their leader. Finally the one on the left blurted, “Your name’s Sheldon?”
“No wonder he always goes by ‘Chief,’” another said. Mutters swept the pack. Those who looked human shifted to wolf. The mutters grew in hostility, all of it directed at Sheldon, aka the Chief.
Cody tapped Willy on the arm. “Matters aren’t looking too good for ol’ Sheldon,” he murmured. “Now might be a good time to skedaddle.”
Willy nodded. They slipped out the door, with Beth between them. Only wolves stalked the floor now, circling the big black male in the center. His yowled demands for obedience went unheeded. The circle began to close in. Willy shut the door behind them just as the first yelps sounded.
Outside the mill lay a brand new day, bright sunshine and distant birdsong. Willy suspected a new day dawned inside the mill as well, or would just as soon as the mayhem ceased. That was good. She hadn’t wanted the pack destroyed, just out of her hair. She didn’t want to silence their singing, especially not now.
“Here y’go.” Cody handed back her cell. “I was you, I’d download the whole family reunion and burn yourself a DVD. Might come in handy. You never know.”
“Family.” Beth shuddered. “Yeesh. Mom really slept with a werewolf?”
“At least once,” Willy said distractedly. She couldn’t help but stare back at the mill, in spite of the ugly sounds leaking out of it.
So she had a werewolf for a father. It wasn’t like he was a drunk or a pedophile or something. Her feelings about wolves had done a one-eighty in the last twenty-four hours.
As if drawn by her thoughts, the mill’s door creaked open and Leonard emerged. He blinked in the sunlight, sniffed the air, turned toward them and smiled. Eager, balding, naked as a middle-aged cherub. “Oh good, you’re still here. Could I…just talk. Just for a minute.”
“Yick,” Beth said. “I’ll wait in the car.”
She hurried to the Mustang, while Willy held her ground. A million emotions crashed together and shattered inside her. She reached out to Cody without thinking. He was there to take her hand.
Leonard sidled up to them, stopped well short. Coughed. Peered beyond her shoulder. “A sister. Guess your mom married again.”
“Yeah. Frank’s okay. I think daughters confuse him. Or maybe I scared him. I have that effect on males.”
“Alpha,” Leonard agreed. He eyed Cody. “You didn’t scare all of ‘em off.”
“Cody Gray.” Cody extended his hand. “Your future son-in-law.”
“Yeah?” They shook hands. Leonard let go first. “Coyote, huh? Well, you could do worse. You sure won’t find anything decent in that bunch.” He jerked his head toward the mill. The barking and shrieking had stopped. “Sounds like we may have a new alpha.”
“Will you be all right?” Willy said.
“Hey, don’t worry about me. I know my place. I’m no threat to an alpha. I’ll get by.” An uncomfortable silence descended, and stretched. Leonard dug his toe in the earth. “Well, guess I’ll see who ended up leader. You’re ever down Almacita way, stop in and see me. I own a service station on Ramona. Len’s Texaco.”
Willy’s throat clogged. “I’m a mechanic. Koslinski’s Gas ‘n’ Lube.”
“Yeah? Well, whattaya know?” They looked at each other. Then Willy surged forward and into her father’s arms for the first time since she was a toddler. “You’re family,” she told him. “You’re welcome in my pack, if yours won’t have you. Just tell me one thing. Who saddled me with ‘Wilhelmina’?”
“I did. Sorry. Wilhelmina was my grandmother. She ran the pack after her mate died. Built it up to greatness. You come from a long and distinguished line. Don’t let those losers in there give you the wrong idea.”
One of the “losers” emerged as he spoke. Lyle ambled over to them. “We got an alpha yet?” Leonard said.
“The
y’re working on it. It’s down to Lawrence and Trent. It better not be Lawrence. He’s a tool. And Sheldon won’t stop barking.” Lyle shook his head. “Either way, I’m gone. My brother and me, we’re heading north. We were kind of wondering…”
“Sorry. My bones are too old for travel. Anyway, my family’s here.”
“Not that.” The wolf got red in the face. “You, um, you know how to draw in the shes. With the respect and the personal hygiene and stuff. Can you teach us that? Give us some tips? Help us out with…you know…”
He looked so hopeful and so forlorn even Willy felt sorry for him. “Well now,” Leonard drawled, with a quick wink at Willy, “I suppose an old he-dog can give you pups a few pointers. I hear there are some fine packs up in Oregon.”
“Oregon, yeah. I hear Oregon’s nice.”
By now other wolves had left the mill. They drifted over, wary eyes on Willy. She hugged her father again, then she and Cody headed for the Mustang. When she glanced back she saw the younger wolves clustered around Leonard, talking and listening earnestly.
* * * *
Evening, high in the Coopersburg hills. Willy looked up at the moon. A thin slice of dark had been shaved off its fullness. Her monthly torment was done.
Let the lifetime of torment begin.
She tugged her beach towel more tightly about her to ward off the chill. She’d discovered a towel knotted around her neck would stay on when she shifted to wolf, and give her a garment when she turned back. The beast form she could adjust to, but public nudity still gave her shivers.
And at the other end of the spectrum… She heard Cody patter in behind her, first four paws, then two feet. He moved up beside her, as comfortable in his nakedness as he was in flannel and jeans. “Whoo! That had to be ten miles at least. You are gonna run the legs right off’a me.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “How long you plan to go on running?”
She knew what he meant. Her body fit to his as naturally as breathing. Her mind couldn’t relax so easily. “It’s been a rough couple of days,” she hedged. “Finding my father…finding out I’m a…”
And finding you. I want you so hard it scares me. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“Y’know, if you ran to something for once, instead of away, maybe it’d help.”
“Like you, for instance?”
“No. Never thought I’d say this, but there’s somebody can help you more’n me. Holly, my sister-in-law. She’s full coyote. She can talk you through shifter etiquette, and all the…the…you know, the girly stuff.”
Female. Shifter. Just like her. “Does she… When it’s full moon, does she get…?”
“Nutty as a pecan pie? Oh hell yeah. Full moon rises, you don’t even want to be in the same state with her. Sweet as honey the rest of the time. Just like Mama. You’re nothing new, darlin’. I been there before.”
She wasn’t unique. There were others cursed with the full-moon craziness. Women, unlike Mom and Beth, who’d understand. Shifter women. “Huh. It’s funny, but I never even considered there’d be coyote women.”
“There damn well better be. Where d’you think puppies come from?”
“Puppies? You have puppies? In litters?”
“Whoa! Settle down, darlin’. It’s just a figure of speech. We run to big families, but we come out human-looking, and we pop out one at a time. Well, except for Ewan and Donald. They’re twins. The point is you ain’t a lone wolf in this. There’s tons of us out there. You got a family now.” He flicked his tongue over her cheek. “And you got me. Just say the word.”
Family. A pack. A man who considered her animal nature an asset. All she ever wanted. A smile twitched her lips. “And if that word is no?”
“Then I’ll keep at it until you say yes. Face it, darlin’, you’re stuck with me.”
“It works both ways, you know. Think you can put up with my human side?”
“Not a problem. I don’t mind going ape every once in a while.”
He moved in closer, and demonstrated. Willy sighed out the last of her doubts, and surrendered. After a few minutes he tugged at her towel. The terrycloth fell away. Willy never noticed.
* * * *
“We should get married next full moon,” Cody said two mornings later in Willy’s kitchen. “There’s a preacher in Amarillo who’s one of us. Ceremonies are held outdoors. We start off two-legged, then when the moon rises, everybody switches.”
“And the orgy begins.”
“Well, yeah. We’re coyotes,” Cody said, like that explained everything. “Why? Do apes do it different?”
“Somewhat,” Willy said dryly. She sipped her coffee and smiled. She’d learned a lot about herself and her heritage and her newfound abilities, thanks to Cody, her father, long phone conversations with Holly Gray, and two nights of shapeshifting practice. Growing a pelt made her skin itch, but lotion took care of that.
Best of all, the emotional torment that had plagued her for so long had finally vanished, and not just because the full moon had passed. Now that she knew and accepted her biological pedigree, she suspected those days were gone for good. She might get prickly a certain time of the month, but that came with being a woman, regardless of the breed.
Cody turned from the stove with a plate of waffles and eggs in each hand. He placed one before Willy, then took his own seat. “Shout if you want seconds. So, you think you can get time off from work?”
“For?”
“The trip to Texas. I figure we leave this weekend, even if we take our time we can be home by—”
“Hey! Slow down, speedy. I’m still debating whether I should say yes. Holly and Thad have been telling me all sorts of things about you.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Just the good stuff.” He paused with a forkful of waffles at his mouth. “There’s good stuff, right?”
Willy only smiled and dug into her eggs. Oh yes, there was good stuff, now that she was willing to let herself enjoy it. And enjoy it she did. The things he could do with his tongue—oh my.
“Hey.” Cody sniffed the air. “Something’s missing.”
“Beth,” Willy confirmed. “She’s moved out.”
He arched his sandy brows. “You let her go?”
“It wasn’t easy. She’s my sister, and now I understand how possessive wolves get about family. Especially alpha wolves. No wonder Sheldon was such a total dork. It’s better for both of us if Beth finds her own way. Out of Coopersburg and away from the pack, if you get my meaning.”
“And she went for that?”
“Well…not exactly.” Willy finished her coffee. “I might have let slip to Andy’s girl Susan just who her boyfriend’s been cheating on her with. Beth got on the bus to Sacramento last night, minus some of her hair.”
Cody chuckled. “Darlin’, you’ve got the makings of one fine coyote.”
“I have a good teacher.”
He nudged his plate aside. “I still got plenty to show you.”
Slowly Willy got up, and let her bathrobe slide to the floor. Underneath she was naked. “You’ll have to catch me first.”
Her body blurred from human to wolf. She dove out the screen door and loped for the woods. Cody thrashed himself out of his own robe, shifted, and bolted after her in eager pursuit.
THE END
[email protected]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pat Cunningham was born in southern New Jersey and moved to Pennsylvania with her family at the age of 8. She became corrupted by science fiction and Marvel Comics at an early age and decided on a writing career. As “P. E. Cunningham” she has published a dozen short stories in SF and fantasy magazines. The move into paranormal romances, combining fantasy, humor and relationships, seemed the logical next step. She currently lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and is saving up for a laptop.
www.BookStrand.com
g Romance)