Wolf Hunter

by Loveless, Ryan

  “If we’re meant to be—”

  “Ask me tomorrow.” Westley’s lips were still wet. Jaylen tried not to lick his own in response.

  “You’ve come a long way since this morning,” Westley said.

  “Yeah. I guess so.” Whatever had convinced Westley they were fate-mated had rubbed off on him. He could dismiss it as wolf mojo, except he’d felt it even when Westley had been drugged up on his tea and supposedly not emitting any type of attractant hormones. Hell, he’d had a sense from the moment he’d heard those library books fall that behind all that racket was someone he wanted to meet. Westley having a different term for it didn’t mean Jaylen should be scared shitless. He could handle a home base, and Westley had said Jaylen shouldn’t expect him to be a house wolf. No fawning. No domesticity beyond what two guys do, which Jaylen expected involved wearing the same jeans two weeks straight and only changing the sheets when they started to smell. So maybe it would be all right if he decided to say yes.

  Of course, there was another side of it too. He could do a rough calculation of the wolves he’d killed over the years, of the pissed off relatives, the friends, the law enforcement gunning for him. He didn’t expect any of them would mind if Westley got in the way. They’d mow him down. Tom’s dubious hold on authority was the only thing (barely) keeping them in line. Without Tom around, Westley would be open game for anyone looking to get vengeance. He had to say ‘no’ when Westley asked again. Practicality above emotion.

  Westley took Jaylen’s hand. “Come downstairs.”

  Jaylen forced a smile. “I’d love to, but only because I have to check on my weapons. Come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  Tom had put Jaylen’s bags in the laundry room. Jaylen shoved a pile of unfolded clothes aside and lifted them onto the table that stood between the washer and dryer. He unzipped the first bag and started laying out its contents. Westley watched quietly for awhile, but when Jaylen pulled out the third machete, he spoke.

  “You, uh, you’ve got a lot of stuff there.”

  “Yup.”

  “You use all that?”

  Jaylen picked up the machete and took a few practice swings, slicing the air. Westley jumped. “All of ’em at least once. Like the knives best.”

  “I never heard of knives killing wolves.”

  “Danni taught me a spell. Everything you see has been anointed with the finest sorcery a red-headed, fishnet-wearing, platform heel boot-sporting, college dropout witch can manage.” He met Westley’s gaze. “And that’s damn fine.”

  Westley grinned. “You know, when I called her, before I told her why I was calling, she said she was happy to give away your hand in marriage.”

  “Oh she did?”

  “You told her about me.” Westley looked ready to jump up and down.

  “Yes, I told her about you.” Jaylen rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help smiling either.

  “So, you guys are close?”

  “I see her every few years.”

  “So....? No?”

  “She’s the only friend I’ve got.”

  “Oh.”

  From upstairs, screaming.

  “What was—?” Westley said.

  “It’s started.” Still clutching the machete, Jaylen grabbed Westley by the elbow and shoved him into the sewing room. “Stay here.”

  “Jaylen—”

  “Stay.”

  “I’m not actually a dog. You can’t —”

  Jaylen stepped out and slammed the door. He shoved a chair under the knob. “Don’t make a sound.”

  “I’m flipping you off,” Westley yelled. “I can help!”

  Jaylen grabbed another knife and sprinted upstairs. Damned if he’d let Westley roam around when he was in big dopey nice guy mode.

  The house was in chaos. Wolves everywhere, some still with bits of human skin hanging off them, windows broken, glass in fur, and the fucking sun shining high in the sky. Jaylen backed off, uncertain which wolves were supposedly his allies and which ones were Denton’s. The wolves in front of him were busy trying to tear out each other’s throats, so he left them to it and eased his way into the center of the house. The dining room’s sliding doors hung loose on their hinges, and the map on the table lay in shreds as two wolves battled on top of it. Jaylen looked toward the front door.

  It was wide open, held so by Mrs. Ward’s body, which was half in and half out of the house.

  The stench of fresh blood burned Jaylen’s nose.

  “Jaylen! Where’s Westley?”

  Jaylen turned to see Tom. “Locked him in the sewing room.”

  Tom gestured at a group of slight wolves behind him. “Take these omegas down to him.”

  Jaylen didn’t argue or bristle at the command. Tom growled something at them, and they all followed when Jaylen walked. Westley tried to rush out when Jaylen opened the door.

  “Tom needs you to watch these guys,” Jaylen said, as the wolves poured into the room, dividing around Westley like water around a stone.

  Westley nodded, evidently satisfied to have a task. “Jaylen? Stay safe.”

  “Yeah.”

  On impulse, he grabbed a kiss. The heart-broken look on Westley’s face made him want to give it back. “That wasn’t goodbye,” he said.

  “It better not have been.” Westley shut the door on his own, leaving Jaylen in the low lighting of the laundry room. He glanced at his weapons and shoved them back into the bag they’d come from. He zipped it and pushed it with the others inside the dryer for safe keeping. The last thing he needed was for some human-shaped wolf to get down here and find his arsenal.

  The wolves that had been fighting in the kitchen were both dead, both still wolves. Jaylen ran through the pantry and through the heavy swinging door into the dining room. Tom and Scott were barricading the door while Scott’s mate, who had shifted, prowled nervously beside him.

  A wolf came charging in through one of the broken windows. Jaylen knifed it. It charged again.

  “Move!” Tom yelled. Seeing Tom shift, Jaylen got out of the way. He sprinted up the stairs. Two wolves passed him going down, but neither paid him any attention, and neither bore Denton’s traits, so he let them go. He skidded into a bedroom. Seeing the two bodies on the bed, he hesitated. Mrs. Ward lay beside her husband. Despite the chaos, Tom had taken the time to arrange her. From the corner of his eye, he saw a blur of gray as a wolf leapt through a hall window and bounded toward him. He dispatched it. As he stepped over it, he heard a slow clap. He turned. Denton, in his human form, walked toward him.

  “Your technique has always been something I’ve admired,” he said. “I would ask you to teach me if mine didn’t work so well.”

  “Hasn’t worked on me yet,” Jaylen said.

  Denton smiled. “I think it’s time to rectify that. You’ve lived with grief too long.”

  Jaylen raised his knife. It gleamed with blood. “Mercy killing?”

  Denton looked put out before he offered a sad head tilt. “No, son, no. I’ve never cared about you at all. I don’t think of you as anything but a nuisance. But you seem intent on blowing things all out of proportion.”

  “You killed my family.”

  Denton stared. “Of course I did. I’m a bad, bad man. But I’m a perfect wolf. Your problem is you’ve conflated the two and transferred that into a vendetta against all wolves. You should have spent all this time killing bad men, Jaylen. You’ve wasted your life.”

  “I didn’t—” Jaylen stepped forward. “I know what you are. What wolves are.”

  “You know what I am,” Denton repeated. “You assumed you knew the rest.”

  “No—” He wouldn’t let doubt slip in. This was what Denton did. He played with psychology and, dammit, Jaylen had been the butt of it long enough to know better.

  “And I’ve let you live all this time because I didn’t care. You amused me. But, my plans don’t include you nipping my tail.” He brightened. “Plus, I understand you’re almost happy now. I
smell the omega on you. Westley, was it?”

  “You don’t say his name.” Jaylen surged forward, almost blinded with rage. Denton leapt. Jaylen didn’t realize he was falling until he hit the ground. Denton had shifted in the air. He struck Jaylen’s windpipe with his teeth, and tore. Jaylen struggled to get up, one hand clasped over his bleeding throat, but Denton’s great weight kept him down.

  Suddenly, another wolf sent him flying. Denton backed off, growling, as two large wolves cornered him. They charged together. Jaylen forced his eyes open to watch the finish.

  He closed them to the sound of whimpering. Then a soft, warm tongue lapped his cheek, licking away tears he didn’t know he was crying. Westley. Please be Westley. A second nose snuffled him. Tom. He smiled as he drifted away. Yes, Westley. My answer’s yes. I’m so, so, sorry that my answer is yes. The sounds around him faded until the last noise he heard was Westley’s whine.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT HAD ALL gone to shit after. This was a mess even the pack elders—what was left of them—couldn’t sweep under the rug. Whole damn police department had died, apart from Tom. The president of the city council had been found hanging upside down on the staircase in his home, his foot caught in the railing. The blood from his neck had trailed down the steps drip by drip, soaking the hair of his equally dead second-in-command, who had collapsed face first as if he’d tripped as he ascended the stairs and stayed there to die. Bits of the president had been found in his mouth.

  Westley had come to naked and wrapped up in the Wards’ tennis net, suspended over the court in a way that rendered the net part hammock, part bondage device. He’d lain there, dangling, listening to the ambulance sirens that had woken him. God knew who’d called them—seemed the whole town was inside the Wards’ house, dead or half-dead.

  A week had passed since he’d scraped his knees on the green asphalt after he managed to twist free.

  Scraped knees. Funny how his mind focused on that when his thoughts slipped back to that night. It all boiled down to scraped knees.

  And screaming.

  Growling.

  Death.

  Jaylen.

  Jaylen, who wasn’t dead.

  “Miracle,” the doctors had said. They’d stared from him to their clipboards and back again, pausing to scribble and look, scribble and look.

  Throat torn open. “Missed his carotid by a hair’s width. Should be dead anyway.”

  Vocal cords damaged. “Never speak again if he wakes up.”

  Loss of oxygen to the brain. “Brain damage certain if he wakes up.”

  One thousand fifteen stitches in his right shoulder. “Like a bear tore into him. Never use it again if he wakes up. Lucky to be alive.”

  Westley shifted and groaned as he stretched his legs, absently kicking the end of Jaylen’s hospital bed as he roused himself from an accidental nap. Standard issue chair—brown upholstery, curved arms, reclined if he moved his ass forward—was hell on his back, but he hadn’t moved from it unless certain bodily needs drove him out.

  “Westley, you can’t stay here forever.”

  Or Tom.

  “He could wake up.”

  “West—it’s been a week. If he wakes up, I’ll call you. Now please, go get some fresh air. I’ll stay with him.”

  “Tom.”

  “That’s an order.”

  Westley squeezed Jaylen’s hand and left the room. He didn’t leave because it was “an order.” He left because Tom looked like shit and he needed the chair more. He glanced back and saw Tom already slumped in it, head pitched forward into his hands. Westley had hardly seen Tom since setting up residence at Jaylen’s bedside. Tom had his hands full trying to stop the rolling avalanche of reactionary shitstorm from doing more damage.

  Given that the hastily reformed city council had overturned the law against culling wolves and announced a planned hunt (Operation Revenge, they called it; no mincing words there) and County had sent a half dozen cops down to take over at the station, Tom had an uphill battle. Between that and the grief they all felt, it was amazing anyone was able to function.

  And to top it off, the full moon was tonight. Westley’s thermos of tea was up in the room next to “his” chair. He’d hit it hard in the past week, but while it seemed Denton’s death had stopped other wolves’ random shifting, Westley was still drinking as much as he had before and still feeling the urge to shift burning in his veins. It wasn’t getting any easier on his stomach, either. If any more nurses found him curled over the private toilet in Jaylen’s room, he’d end up with a room of his own. The culling wasn’t to start until tomorrow night (provided the animal rights protesters making their way into town from the state university didn’t stop it), but it was damn certain to start early if the remaining pack made an appearance tonight. Hopefully they’d be smart enough to drive themselves a few hundred miles away or to lock themselves in a bunker.

  Likewise, hopefully those protesters would get out of the damn way if they saw a wolf barreling toward them.

  Westley bought a coffee and stood outside the hospital with it for exactly fifteen minutes dutifully inhaling the outdoor air. He bought another and returned to the room.

  “How long does it take for your tea to work?” Tom didn’t turn around.

  “More than a few hours if you’re thinking about using it tonight.” Westley nudged him with the coffee. “Here.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did he do anything?”

  Tom’s lip twitched, but his eyes remained weary. “Yeah. He hopped up and did a dance as soon as you left. He just laid back down.” Reaching out, he patted Jaylen’s hand. “Wore himself out, poor guy.”

  “Asshole,” Westley said, feeling better. Tom’s twitch turned into a proper smile.

  “Couldn’t resist.” He took the lid off the cup and inhaled. “Mmm. Institutionalized crap coffee. Just what I needed.” He looked at Jaylen again. “They did a number on his hair, didn’t they? Better to have a few bad hair days than be dead, though.”

  The first time Westley had seen Jaylen fresh from surgery with his braids chopped off, uneven tufts of hair left close to his neck, and one side shaved bare up to his ear, he’d stopped in his tracks and reminded himself to breathe. Westley had tied off the close-to scalp cornrows that remained using rubber bands he’d found in the gift shop, but not before they’d started unraveling. “He’s going to be so pissed off.”

  “Probably,” Tom said, which wasn’t the reassurance Westley had been hoping for.

  “I don’t know if my tea’s working,” Westley said after a moment. “I think I’m going to change tonight.”

  Tom, still seated, looked up at him. “Do you feel sick? It’s not natural for you to prevent your shift—”

  “Don’t start,” Westley said. “I told you I’d go back on it as soon as Denton was dead. Maybe you don’t mind being a murdering bastard—”

  “I’ve never killed anyone. Until... recently.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Westley couldn’t meet his eyes, certain they were both thinking the same thing; that Tom had gone his whole life without ending someone else’s until he’d had to kill his father, but Westley had his first kill before he hit puberty. The boy from Westley’s fifth grade class. Westley had never believed his father was responsible, not really. “I meant, I meant I don’t want... to be like that. Inhuman.”

  “Humans kill too.” Tom glanced at Jaylen. Westley wasn’t sure if he was making a point or if it was a coincidence that Denton had said almost the same thing. But, knowing Tom, there were no coincidences.

  “Yeah, well.... He’s my mate now, so you better watch what you say about him.” Westley bunched his fists. He’d never hit Tom before.

  “I’ve mentioned your tea to the pack.”

  “You had a pack meeting?”

  “Believe it or not, the world goes on while you’re in here.”

  “I know that. I... don’t think about it much, I guess.”

 
; “I’m not blaming you. It’s good you’re here with Jaylen.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ve been trying to find a solution that will keep people safe for the long term. We’ve talked about moving the pack.”

  “You can’t—”

  “It’s an option. Then I thought of your tea. Of course as soon as I mentioned it, the elders who believed me that a concoction like that existed accused me of trying to save my own ass. They figure some wolf will kill me once we’re all shifted.”

  “Tom—”

  Tom’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I think it too. Everything’s a mess out there. But that’s not why I think it’s a good idea. You understand, don’t you?”

  “It’s the safest way,” Westley said. “But it won’t do any good this close to the full moon.”

  “Everyone’s on orders to lock themselves up tonight. Westley, I didn’t tell anyone it was yours, although with your reputation for working magic with plants and, well, being you, I’m sure it won’t be difficult to figure out. Hopefully it’ll keep everybody human next moon and after that, we’ll see.”

  Tom had a point, but Westley couldn’t worry about it now. “I’m taking four times my normal dose, so with what I have ready I can give you enough for sixty doses. That won’t cover everyone. Hell, it’ll hardly help a third.”

  “Make me a dosage chart,” Tom said. “And I’ll make sure it gets to the ones most likely to be rampaging. For the others, we’ll figure something out.”

  “Are you including yourself on that list?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure you can.” Westley smiled. “How are you, really?”

  “Honestly, I’ve been better. You should hear the ideas I’ve had to talk down. Somebody wanted to shift all the humans. Said they won’t kill us if they’re one of us. He actually had supporters.”

  “Crap,” Westley said.