by Cheree Alsop
I glanced at her. “Too bad they lost the trail halfway in.”
She gave me a puzzled look, then a small smile. “Traer said you were the best tracker.”
I shrugged. “It's the reason I went on ahead. Sorry about ditching you back there.”
“I didn't want to slow you down. I just can't believe you went down into that cave without ropes.” She gave me an unreadable look that made me uncomfortable.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Would you believe I did it for the thrill of the adventure?”
She shook her head. “I believe you did it to help innocent humans who were hurt.” Her eyes narrowed. “I don't understand you, Vance.”
“That I'm not all evil?” I asked offhandedly to cover up how much her words bothered me.
“That you live in a desert, have a Masters degree in Literature and Philosophy, and take care of a pack of werewolves instead of living a normal life in the city.” Her brow creased. “There’re a lot of werewolves that function in society.”
I didn't let my surprise show. “Are you saying that you're okay with werewolves in normal society?”
She avoided my gaze. “I don't know what I believe anymore,” she said softly.
I let that settle for a moment, then brought out the topic that had been at the back of my mind all day. “It's a full moon tonight.”
The skin around her eyes tightened slightly at the thought of being surrounded by a group of werewolves forced to be in wolf form by the moon. She brushed at an imaginary speck on the sleeve of her shirt. “Does, uh, your pack generally behave on full moons?”
I nodded and fought back a smile at the tension in her voice. “They do, and we're not a pack.”
She glanced at me. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “Two's more of a werewolf retreat than a pack territory. The wolves at Two are my friends, but five male Alphas living together along with nine other male grays isn't exactly natural.” My heart turned over at the thought that with the help of Nora's Hunters, the numbers were actually four Alphas and six grays.
“Then why do you live there?”
I phrased my answer carefully. “Two was created to be our second home, a haven where male werewolves could grow up in safety to preserve the werewolf line.”
“Females are expendable?” Nora asked with a spark of defiance.
I chuckled. “Not exactly. The females are safe. Someone started killing off Alphas when I was six. My parents built Two as a sanctuary.” My tone darkened. “Eventually, it became easier to just keep us here. Alphas are a bit hard to live with.”
“Did they visit?” she asked, horrified.
“For a while.” I forced a nonchalant tone. “Then we communicated through computer and phone.”
“And they feel justified in abandoning their children to raise themselves?”
I studied the rock walls around us. “When someone else started killing off Alphas again a year ago, and were much more successful at it this time, it justified their system.” My throat tightened, but I forced my voice to remain steady. “I was supposed to go home when I turned eighteen, but the first killings happened just before my birthday, and one of their gifts was that I would stay at Two until it was safe.”
Nora glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “And who decides that?”
I didn't answer and she didn't press the issue.
After a while, she said, “There must be something more that keeps you at Two besides your parents.”
I nodded and gestured to the red rocks around us. “This keeps me.”
She shot me a look. “Dirt and rocks?”
I shook my head and pointed at the achingly blue sky above the stark red sands. “The azure sky, the red sandstone, the cool nights and hot days. I'm free out here in my own way.”
“And trapped as well,” she replied. She held up a hand when I opened my mouth to argue. “Don't get me wrong. You can have your blue sky and rocks and all, but this isn't freedom.”
“And you have freedom?” I pressed.
She glared at me and turned away in a huff. We walked in silence back to the vehicles, then said goodbye to Ron and his team.
“Another find to make me look bad,” Ron said good-naturedly as he shook my hand.
I grinned. “You just started missing me, that's all.”
He rolled his eyes and opened the door to my jeep. The wolves jumped in and Nora started to climb gingerly up after them, but Traer stopped her and motioned toward the front seat. Nora glanced back at me in surprise. I shrugged to hide my own astonishment. She limped around the jeep and climbed into the front seat, then threw Traer a grateful smile.
He met my eyes with a slight touch of red to his cheeks and got in the back with Seth and Max. I bit back a smile and started the engine.
Chapter 6
It felt good to phase in the light of the moon. I chose to do it outside away from Nora so as not to scare her. She was adamant that she wouldn't try to leave, and I hoped the idea of nine wolves running around was enough to keep her from taking back her promise.
Brian, Ben, and Thomas, the other three Alphas at Two, joined me for our usual run around the perimeter. The six grays, Max, Seth, Traer, Johnny, Zach, and Drake, followed close behind. It was a silent, formidable group, but my bones ached deep inside for a real pack and the closeness and loyalty that came from running with a true family. My own parents, Alphas themselves, had only run with me once for my first phase at Two when I was seven. The other werewolves around me had similar stories, and we had learned to rely on ourselves for friendship and camaraderie, a hard thing when most males branched out to start their own packs in their late teens and early twenties. It stung to be forbidden even my rights as an Alpha, though the gaping absence of the other wolves who should be with us was a stark remind of my failure to them as well.
I shook my head to clear the dark thoughts and broke into a run. I veered away from the others and loped across the soft desert sand through red rock walls that twisted and branched to the point where loss of attention to the path meant getting lost and possible death by starvation and thirst if not by rattlesnakes.
I loped through scrub brush and down winding game trails until I left the other werewolves far behind. I cut across the path of our jeeps from the day before and followed them at a breakneck speed. I didn't slow until I reached the mouth of White Horse Canyon. The scent of death touched my nose before I traveled half a dozen feet along the narrow trail. The jeeps would have had to take it easy here with their cargo. I pushed the thought aside and padded through the salt grass and rocks that lined the meager trail.
The canyon turned to the west to follow the river that had once been great enough to carve its deep channel, but now trickled along the bottom until swelled by the occasional flash flood to cover the trail. I followed it a short distance, then turned up a deer trail that smelled of Zach, Max, and lifeless bodies. They must have carried them one or two at a time up the winding trail to the canyon hidden behind.
I took a steeling breath, then topped the rise. My stomach turned and breath caught at the sight and smell of twenty-four bodies in the ravine below. I was responsible for fourteen of their deaths. I swallowed and forced myself to look at them. Faces of young men and women around the age of the werewolves at Two stared unseeing at the full moon. Several of the girls were beautiful. I could imagine suitors kissing their cheeks and working up the courage to ask for a dance. The men reminded me of soldiers sent off to war, barely old enough to hold a gun, yet entrusted with the lives of those on either end. I pictured mothers saying farewell and fathers telling their sons how proud they were.
A lump formed in my throat. Sorrow rose so strongly I couldn’t hold it in. The agony I felt over Sam’s death and the death of the other werewolves at Two battered against my mind and thoughts until I couldn’t think any longer. The fact that other families would feel the same loss for the Hunters below made my bones ache. I lifted my nose to the moon and howled for the lives
that would never be lived because of a foolish decision to attack a werewolf hideout.
A few minutes later, nine other voices rose to mingle with mine, their howls as dark and raw as my own with the loss of our companions. We said goodbye to them as wolves letting go of trusted comrades, saying farewell to boys we had grown up with and watched mature, of memories wasted and lives thrown away. We might not have made a proper pack, but when our parents took the easy way out of raising us, we stood by one another and helped each other through the hard times.
I let the guilt I felt at not being prepared for the attack tangle in my voice. I was the leader of Two. I accepted responsibility for their deaths and for the loss of the Hunters in the ravine beneath my feet. The heaviness on my shoulders threatened to choke me and my voice died away while the others continued to echo through the countless canyons. They, too, eventually faded, leaving the desert sands fuller and more empty with their passing.
I studied the bodies below until their faces blurred into one and Sam's empty eyes stared back at me. A drop of water fell on my head, shaking me from the memory. I blinked and rose, the rare desert rain falling like tiny stars laced with moonlight. The moon was starting its descent in the sky, casting a halo of silver from behind clouds that had gathered while I was lost in my thoughts. I closed my eyes and relished the moon's embrace for a moment, then forced myself to turn toward home.
It was hard to leave the bodies of the Hunters, strangers who had come with the intent to kill us, but who were nonetheless sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and perhaps lovers whose bodies wouldn't be mourned or buried like they deserved.
I ran away from thoughts that would be treated as outrageous back at Two. I thought of Sam, Riff, Jason, and Sy, once full of life, hope, and dreams, and now just bodies that would be taken home in the morning for their own loved ones to mourn. I regretted that I couldn't go with them and wish their families the condolences and respect they deserved, but I didn't dare leave Nora to the whims of the others if a vengeful mood came upon them. A group of wolves could be worse than a mob if fueled by the right type of rage.
I arrived back at Two to find Nora gone, her scent hours old. A pit formed in my stomach, but I wasn’t surprised. I picked up her trail amid the rain just outside camp where Brian had been stabbed in the leg. His blood colored the sandy ground in a dry dark patch that would soon be washed away by the rain. Fear didn't color Nora’s scent, only anxiety and urgency so I knew no one was chasing her. She had chosen the perfect night for her escape, the only night when I didn't post sentries at Two because usually no one was there to worry about.
I loped along her trail, her scent growing stronger and stronger until I made out her form stumbling through the shadows. She glanced back, but her gaze moved past my black fur camouflaged in the darkness. She wiped rain from her forehead and continued around the corner. I trotted to catch up to her, then stopped.
She stood in the middle of the trail and glared at me with her hands on her hips. “I'm not going back,” she said in a tone edged with the slightest hint of fear.
I wondered if she had ever seen a phased werewolf before. We looked like normal wolves, but bigger. A phased werewolf weighed the same as in human form because mass wasn't lost during the phase, just relocated, which made for some quite intimidating animals, and I was the biggest werewolf of any I had met.
I sat down on the trail and watched her, weighing my options. The rain fell around us with a patter that sounded like tiny feet, turning the dusty ground into plastered mud while the few plants soaked in what they could reach.
I couldn't phase back to human form until the moon sunk below the horizon, so I could either drag her back unwillingly in my wolf form, facing who knows what kind of battering she was capable of after the last several assaults I had experienced, or I could go with her, make sure she was safe, then convince her to return with me after the moon had lost its hold.
I rose and walked slowly through the rain to her side. She stiffened and I could tell she forced herself not to run. A twist of her fear tangled on the night breeze and a pang ran through me at the thought that she had seen so much of what we really were and was still afraid. I gave a soft snort and passed her on the trail. It surprised me how hard it was to turn my back on her with her Hunter background even after what I knew of her. I fought back a wry smile at our similarities, reminding myself that a wolf's smile looked a bit more menacing than a human's.
“Where are you going?” Nora demanded from behind me.
I kept walking, knowing she had no choice but to catch up.
Her feet thudded on the path and she huffed when she grew near. “What? You going to walk me to my dad's?” The heavy sarcasm held a hint of hope.
I was grateful I couldn't answer in wolf form and kept walking. She caught up to my side, then fell in step at the far side of the path. We walked for several minutes in silence. The breeze brought me her subtle scent of vanilla and sunflowers touched with rain. She studied the moon, the stars, the landscape around us, everything to avoid looking directly at me. I almost gave up and walked away when she cleared her throat softly.
“It's nice not walking alone,” she said in an uncertain voice. The rain pattered around us lightly, but the darkness of the clouds to the east indicated heavier rainfall at higher elevations. I wondered how she dared to walk through a night where even the full moon was obscured by clouds and the rain sounded like a hundred creatures waiting just out of sight.
I glanced at her. She stared straight ahead, but her hand strayed over and rested on my back. I walked on as though I didn't notice, but a surge of warmth ran from the spot on my back and down my legs, making them weak. I wondered at the strength she had over me and what she represented. My mother had pretty much threatened to come over and kill her for me, and I had no doubts what Nora's parents would do if they ever found Two.
I kept seeing her eyes that first night in camp, wide with pain but fierce with determination. When she looked at me, I smelled fear, but also an edge of defiance and courage that I admired. Her look had pierced right through me and wrapped around my heart. I shouldn’t have saved her from the others, but at that point, it was the only course of action available to me. The heat from her hand and the tremor that ran through my skin at her touch scared me. I needed to keep my wits about me and I couldn’t let her make me so vulnerable. Yet here we were, walking through the night against all logic, and I still felt weak under her touch.
If she felt anything strange she didn't show it, but she kept her hand on my fur. I didn't know if it was for comfort or because my eyesight was better in the dark. I was glad that as a wolf I couldn't ask. The emotions that warred inside me were conflicted enough without adding her hostility. We continued on through the desert rain, two strangers with more in common than either dared to admit.
***
The moon set and the gray edge of dawn showed on the eastern horizon. The rain continued to fall softly, but the dark clouds in the distance told of rains that hadn’t let up. Nora's hand eventually lifted and I knew she realized I was no longer forced to stay a wolf.
The closest clothing cache among those hidden along the landscape for emergencies wasn't too far away. I figured I could run to it, phase, dress, and reach her again before she got too far. I padded to the edge of the trail, glanced back to find her watching with an expression of loss and determination that sent a pang of regret through my heart, and disappeared into the sage.
I ran to the clothes hidden in a waterproof pack between two small boulders over the next ridge, phased, pulled on a pair of shorts, and ran back to the trail. She was gone as I had expected. Her footprints left the trail and headed sharply downhill to disappear over a stone rise. I climbed it and hurried down to find her at the edge of a natural chasm.
She glanced back and her eyes widened before she started to work her way to the bottom.
“I wouldn't do that,” I warned.
She glared up at me, her green eyes sp
arking. “Go home, or run away from a beast?”
Her words cut like knives and I fought back the urge to bare my teeth and snarl. “It's raining. These gorges carry flash floods through the desert. If you're caught at the bottom, you might never get out.”
“Oh, I'm so scared,” she said. She rolled her eyes and slid to the bottom. As if to prove her point, she walked down the ravine.
The sound of water touched my ears and my heart slowed. “Get out of there.”
She stopped. “If you come down here, I'll cut you again,” she warned. She brandished a knife and I bristled at an answering echo of remembered pain that ran down my back.
I gestured up the hill. “If the water reaches you, I won't be fast enough to get you out.”
An emotion flickered in her eyes too fast for me to catch, then she smiled. “You're just trying to scare me.” She turned to continue walking, but stopped when the rush of water reached her ears. She turned back and the world slowed. “Vance?” she asked.
A raging river of water rushed around the corner above her carrying logs and debris torn from the ground by its heedless descent. Her eyes widened and she screamed. The plunging wall of water swallowed her before I could move.
“Nora!” I yelled.
I ran along the bank, fighting to keep her in view despite the debris that battered her body and the sage and twisted bushes that impeded my flight. I pushed myself to run faster than I ever had before. I rounded the next bend and my heart slowed at the roar of water that plummeted toward the edge of the ravine that led to a deep wash below. I glanced back in time to see Nora forced under the water by branches entangled around her. There was only one way to save her.
I slid down the side of the chasm. Gnarled roots and branches grabbed at my hands and body, then I pushed off and landed at the edge of the ravine. A puff of dust rose at my feet as though mocking the water that plummeted toward me. Sound dropped off the edge of the cliff at my back, a fall that would kill us both if I made any mistakes. The water roared closer, its sound multiplied by the chasm walls and the debris that was propelled by the water’s maddening rush. I braced myself across the opening and gritted my teeth.