Odd Wolf

by Virginia Nelson

  Her scream followed him to the ground. The wolves flowed around the creature, teeth snapping and pulling at the leather, dogs with a tasty bone. She hit it, spiking the necklace around its neck in her pounce. Small, naked, surrounded by wolves, she held the box in her palm. “In a place, out of time, to face true evil without a face. One to charm you, one to harm you, one to put you in a box. When you face him, bonds are broken, if the truest words are never spoken.”

  Nothing happened and the creature laughed. Lynwood curled into himself. It hadn’t worked.

  Practically screaming the words, she repeated, “In a place, out of time, to face true evil without a face. One to charm you, one to harm you, one to put you in a box. When you face him, bonds are broken, if the truest words are never spoken.”

  Still, nothing, but the laughter seemed to hurt her. She spun, seeming to look at things Lynwood couldn’t see, ducking as if they attacked her from all sides. “Get off me!” She swatted at them and her wolves all scrabbled. The pack was panicked, unable to see the threat their leader faced, unable to help her.

  And he couldn’t help her either. His blood leaked out between his fingertips and his muscles convulsed so hard, he couldn’t breathe past the contraction of them. Jaw locked, he could do nothing more than look at her even as his vision dimmed.

  But then she dropped, falling to the snow next to him, and he fought harder. She couldn’t fall. They couldn’t beat her. Not while he lived. Managing to get a breath, if a small one, he forced himself up to one arm. “Dara,” he whispered.

  “I claim you as my mate!” She screamed the words into his face.

  “What?” Sucking in another breath past his protesting throat, he reached for her. “Dara.”

  “I’m claiming you. Dammit, tell me you agree to be pack. Hurry!”

  He shook his head. He didn’t understand, couldn’t think. She offered him pack bonds while her pack fell all around them. She offered herself while they both lay dying.

  Then again, he’d rather die with her than alone. “I’m yours.” He managed the words then her teeth clamped down on his wrist. For the first time in a very long time, he felt the ties of pack.

  The bonds of family.

  He was part of her, part of her pack, and as the pack bled, he bled.

  Howls filled the night. Lifting her head, she again screamed the words, holding the box toward the skinwalker. “By the power of three times three, using the words which came to me, I claim this man, claim this pack, they are me. In a place, out of time, to face true evil without a face. One to charm you, one to harm you, one to put you in a box. When you face him, bonds are broken, if the truest words are never spoken. I dare you to find truer words than a mating bond, you fucker. Now, die.”

  The box glowed in her hand, the monster screamed, and feathers flew all around them in a cloud of black. As if the night itself shredded into a thousand fragments, a whirlwind of darkness surrounded them.

  Lynwood sank into the dark.

  ***

  “We’ve got to get him to the witches.” The box in her hand lay cool and harmless, the gold now swirling with tribal patterns shaped like feathers and birds. “I want some of you to take Greg, others to grab Lynwood. It is going to take most of the night to get back to town. Go straight to Odd Stuff. Don’t stop until you’ve made sure they’re with Mia herself, no one else.”

  Stroking her fingers across his face, she tried to take the wounds into herself, but it wasn’t working, not enough. The skinwalker did something to him and Greg, something banishing the monster didn’t stop. On top of that, Lynwood had been silver-poisoned.

  Likely, he wouldn’t make it through the night.

  “Yeah, well, we’re not leaving you, either, so get your ass up and let’s move.” Charley cupped his arm, injured in the battle with the skinwalker and still bleeding, meaning he’d probably been silver poisoned, too.

  “I’m moving,” she agreed, but her hope had been sapped. She’d claimed him, probably in the hastiest mating in all history, only to know it wouldn’t save him.

  Wouldn’t save her. The bond would kill her with him. Mates were forever, so when he succumbed and those horrible gasping breaths stopped, her heart would cease to beat with his. Not that she was pointing it out to Charley. He knew.

  They all knew. Their alpha tied herself to a breathing corpse. The pack would mourn this night, when she fell. But Charley would take care of them. They’d still be wolves in the morning.

  She’d won, but she sacrificed to do it. It seemed too many of her decisions came down to one word—sacrifice. She risked her life for the pack, she bled for the pack.

  Tonight, she’d die for the pack. But he would too, so she grieved more than her own life.

  Tears coated her cheeks as they made their slow progress through the woods. She didn’t know why the stupid man hurled himself at the skinwalker, didn’t know why he took a blow was clearly meant for her, but he’d done it and bought her the time to figure out how to open the trap. Even if she’d fallen, if the pack lost their wolves, he still could’ve probably been cured. He could’ve gone on.

  The stupid, wonderful, dying rogue.

  Asking for a phone, she dialed Odd Stuff. “Hey, Mia, we’re coming in injured. I have men with black tongues, a good chunk of the pack poisoned by silver, and—” And I mated a man who is dying, so you can’t save me. “I would ask you to help my people.”

  “Hang on. Chance!” Mia must’ve cupped a hand over the phone when she yelled, because her cry was muffled. She couldn’t hear the exchange, but she bit back her own frustration. Now wasn’t the time for Mia to be distracted. She needed her to save as many of her people as she could and it wouldn’t be an easy task. It was no small favor she asked the witch, but she trusted Mia.

  Had to. There was no one else to help them.

  Electricity popped and crackled and Janie and Chance appeared between the trees a few feet ahead of them. Mia’s voice in her ear said, “So, since they vanished from here, I’m guessing they’re there now?”

  “Uh, yeah. They just appeared.” Members of the pack were growling, hackles raised. Those in human form poised to attack this new threat, so Dara called out to them. “Hey, they’re with us, guys. Don’t kill them.”

  “As if a bunch of dogs could kill us,” Chance muttered.

  Janie appeared to be counting. “Dang. There are, like, seventy of them. Various forms—can we take that many?”

  “We can do anything so long as we are together, my love. Ready?”

  Janie shrugged. “What the hell. We either try or go back to streaming old Walking Dead episodes. Let’s do it.”

  Before Dara could ask what exactly they planned to do, Dara blinked and found herself surrounded by the dusty, herbal smell of Odd Stuff.

  “Oh my gods, they’re bleeding all over…there are wolves everywhere! Get that one off my window seat. Cripes, Chance, couldn’t you have brought them back one at a time?” Mia sounded annoyed.

  “Don’t bitch. They’re here. Well, the injured ones. I left the healthy ones. Someone might want to call them or something and tell them what happened.” Chance shrugged.

  “Go tell them yourself.” Mia rolled up her sleeves. “Silver poisoned, upstairs. Janie, there is a gallon jug in my fridge, says sodium hyposulphite. Dump it in the tub, fill it the rest of the way with warm water. Cycle them through there, get Vic going on making glasses of salt water. Couple tablespoons to about an eight ounce glass should do the trick. Black tongues, here. I have a theory, but I need to double check my books.” When no one moved, all frozen looking at the witch in confusion, she clapped her hands. “C’mon, move people. Chop chop.”

  In seconds, most of them crowded up the spiral staircase, leaving Mia flipping through pages in a book and Chance hovering over her shoulder. Charley knelt next to Greg and Dara sat cross-legged, holding Lynwood’s head. “Salt water?”

  “Yeah, old treatment for silver poisoning. Oh, hang on.” Snagging her tablet, M
ia tapped for a second and then smiled at Dara. “I’m having Sven grab some milk, too. I figure ten gallons should do the trick. Once they’ve gone through the salt process, we’ll give them milk—Chance, tell Janie they’ll need at least a couple glasses each—and it should get them healed up enough to shift away the rest of their injuries. That’s the easy part.”

  Dara didn’t question her. She’d seen Mia do too many things which seemed impossible over the years to doubt her ability to save the wolves. “What about the black tongues?”

  “Well, since we now know you were fighting a skinwalker, we can look them up. Sometimes the hardest part really is identifying the monster, but from there it gets a lot easier. I’m sure one of the books has something on it.” Mia went back to searching and Lynwood convulsed again in Dara’s arms.

  Bending her head, she rested her forehead against his. “Hang on a little longer, rogue. Stay with me.”

  Mia exclaimed, “Oh, that’s just nasty. Look.” Chance bent and read the page Mia pointed toward.

  “And people call me a monster. That’s disgusting.” Chance moved away from Mia, coming to peer at Lynwood. “Is that even fixable?”

  Heart in her throat, Dara clutched Lynwood closer. It had to be fixable.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. Skinwalkers poison folks, according to the books. They can do it a couple different ways. Some make beads out of human bones and blow them in evil spitballs which dig under your skin like a tick to poison from the inside out. The other way is by blowing ground up baby bones in a dust—they call it corpse dust—in the face of their prey. It blackens the tongue, causes spasms, and eventually death. I’m thinking he got hit with corpse dust.” Mia tapped the paper, nodding to herself. “It fits all his symptoms.”

  “You didn’t mention the cure,” Dara pointed out. His breaths were shallow, gasping, and his heart seemed to barely beat from what she could feel at his throat. “Tell me there is a cure.”

  Greg was bowed, the convulsions making the man shudder in obvious agony.

  “Songs? It says songs. It says the corpse powder separates the spirit from the flesh, so they sing it back to full unity.” Mia looked confused.

  “I know only one song of our people.” Dara tilted her head back, bringing forth the voice of the wolf. Her howl echoed through the small store, answered by her pack. She sang of their battle, of their losses, of their triumph. She sang of loss, of hope, of love. She sang of her own loneliness and the magic of finding a man who took the loneliness into his hands and gave her his own. Together, they found short moments of happiness.

  The howls faded to silence and she looked down at Lynwood. He was still. It was done.

  CHAPTER Fourteen

  “Good morning¸ sleeping beauty. Welcome back to the world of the living.” Charley’s face was both unexpected and not altogether welcome. Scrubbing a hand across his face, Lynwood looked up at the other man.

  “Did we beat the bad guys?” Lynwood asked. “And why the hell do I feel weird?”

  Charley laughed. “We beat the bad guy. Only one bad guy, which means this wasn’t even one of our worst battles. In this town, rogue, you’re going to have to get used to the occasional war with the strange. We have too many weird neighbors not to rub elbows now and then, but don’t tell the boss I get it. She likes to think she’s the only one who understands politics, but I pay attention.”

  The other man leaned back in his chair. Pulling out his file, he met Lynwood’s eyes as he murmured, “Snick,” and began filing his claws.

  “Where’s Dara?” Lynwood tried to sit, only to be shoved back down by Charley.

  “Not so fast, kid. We may have reattached your soul, but you still got the shit sliced out of your gut. You’re going to need to change at least a couple times to close up your wound, but we got the poison out mostly. The witch doc prescribes milk, transformations, and a shave. Okay, Mia didn’t recommend the shave, but you’re getting to be a hairy bastard, so I’d advise it before you went looking for the boss.”

  None of that it made sense, so Lynwood simply repeated his question. “Where’s Dara?”

  “She’s good. Resting, but not because she wanted to. The witch, she gave her some stuff to drink. Knocked her out. Like you, she’s a stubborn wolf.” Charley smiled fondly.

  “You knocked out your alpha?” Lynwood wanted to sit, but figured Charley would probably shove him back down, so he didn’t bother.

  “For her own good.” Charley shook his head. “Gave the witch the skinwalker box. Don’t know what she’s doing with it, but away from Dara is good enough for me. Anyway, now that you’re pack—”

  “Wait, what? Did I miss something? Sleep through some pack ritual I should’ve attended? I’m rogue.”

  Charley grinned. “You were rogue. Don’t you feel it?”

  Closing his eyes, Lynwood focused inside. To the empty place, the place hollowed when he’d lost everything and given up what ties remained to his family to walk alone. It wasn’t empty.

  In tiny gossamer floss threads tying him into place, he could feel the pack. They were part of him, tied to him, woven inside him. And he was tied to them. “Shit.”

  “Welcome to the family. Since you can cook, we’ll probably hang out at your house for a lot of meetings. Can you do cakes? I have a sweet tooth.” Charley shrugged. “But, hey, we all have weaknesses, right?”

  Lynwood swallowed. “She claimed me. In the clearing. She—”

  Could’ve died.

  He couldn’t quite say the words.

  “Yup, you went from rogue wolf to mated with an alpha. Which might be a first. Congrats. That said?” Charley snagged his shirt, tugging him up until they were eye to eye. “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you. Not quickly. I’ll do it nice and slow, make sure you feel every second of it. You do not want to fuck with me, are we clear?”

  Lynwood swallowed, breathing hard as the yellow eyes seemed to bore into his soul. “Yeah, I get it.”

  “You’re not rogue. You’re not leaving town. You’re manning up, contributing to the pack, and you’re going to be there if she needs you, got it? The mating business, it isn’t just about getting your dick wet. You take her on, you’re taking on her problems and her low points. Get it?”

  Lynwood nodded. “Why do I have a feeling not agreeing would probably not go well for me?”

  Charley dropped him back to the sheet, then headed to the door. With a grin tossed over his shoulder, the other wolf said, “Because if you hadn’t agreed without hesitation, I would’ve snapped your neck and figured out how to save my alpha from the mating bond. Protecting her? It is what I do. Now it is what you do, too. So long as we don’t disagree on that, we can be pals.”

  Biting his lip, Lynwood considered the possibility. “So you’re into comic books?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Shrugging, Lynwood smiled. “I have a cousin, she kept some of my stuff in storage. Dumb, since I didn’t ever plan to settle down again. Not really part of the rogue life. But she kept my stuff and I can have her ship it here. I might have a couple boxes of comics from when I was a kid, still in the plastic, you would want to look at. You know, since we’re pals and all that.”

  Charley’s smile warmed a place in Lynwood he hadn’t realized was cold. “Good deal. Rest. She’s going to need you when she wakes. You scared the shit out of her.”

  With those words, the other wolf left Lynwood alone with his newfound knowledge. He’d found a home, a place and people who might even grow to like him.

  In one move she might not have considered, Dara gave him back family. Her pack wasn’t broken. By mating him, she ensured he’d never live to see a day in a broken pack. If she died, he’d die. They’d go together.

  For the first time since he was a kid, Lynwood wasn’t alone. And she’d made sure in the one way she could…he’d never be alone again.

  ***

  “Look, I don’t have time for this, Greg. Drink the damned milk.” Presenting the glass, she glared at the
dark-haired man in the bed who sulked like a child.

  “I didn’t get cut. No silver poisoning here, not even a little. And I’m lactose intolerant. You beat the corpse dust, I’m fine. No milk for me, but thanks, Dara.” He smiled at her, as if he hoped to charm her into agreeing.

  “Now.” It was a waste of her alpha powers, but she laced the command with dominance. She’d never guessed before she was an alpha how much of her job would be simply making people do stuff that was good for them, but being in charge of a pack was similar to trying to keep a bathtub full of corks submerged. There was forever one cork which bobbed up between her fingers, doing things not in their own best interest, and most of her responsibility circled enforcing they did the things.

  There were so damned many things some days. Sighing, she glanced at the wall. The bond told her Lynwood was on the other side of the wall. Yet instead of going to him, she stood over Gregory and fought about a damned glass of milk.

  Once he’d finished it and wore a milk moustache on his upper lip, she smiled. “There, was that so hard? And you’re not lactose intolerant. You’re full of shit is what you are.”

  Greg sat the glass down with a thump. Crossing his arms, he scowled at her. “Yes, well I don’t like milk. Same thing.”

  “Hardly.” Pulling him into a hug, she plucked the thread inside her which linked her to Greg. It shined, strong and solid. He’d be okay. “Don’t scare me like that again, wolf. That’s an order.”

  “Got it. So, you have a mate now. Since you do, can I be really honest?”

  Raising a brow at him, she smoothed the sheet over his chest, tugging it free of his fists. “Are you ever not?”

  “Well, uh, okay, I’m not lactose intolerant.”

  She snorted.

  “Do you remember that one time? The time we played beer pong with firewater?”

  Frowning, she placed her hand over his. He’d scared her. She loved her people, even if they drove her batty. “Vaguely. I remember puking my guts out, if that’s what you mean.”