Silver Collar

by Gill McKnight

  “You need to look after your ears,” the woman scolded her playfully. “How else are you going hear the Garouls sneaking up on you?”

  So it isn’t playfulness, Emily thought. It’s torture. She tried to swat the hands away only to have hers grabbed by bigger hands and her palms and fingers brusquely massaged and soaped clean.

  “Paws, too,” said her tormentor. “Very important for running away.”

  “Stop it.” Emily spat water from her mouth. “I can wash myself.”

  “Can you now?” The woman grinned down at her. “That might take a while. You got more muck on you than an earthworm.”

  Her protests were ignored, and Emily found herself too tired for even a token struggle. Her neck and armpits were soaped by calloused palms that stroked down her back to the flair of her hips in broad, stinging sweeps. God, I’d pay a hundred dollars for an exfoliation like this in a salon. Emily’s unwelcome thought broke off into a squeak as she was spun around and her bottom was brusquely massaged.

  “Hindquarters should be nice and silky for a good nipping,” the woman said. There was suppressed humor in her voice. “Because trust me, you aren’t going to outrun a werewolf.”

  Emily felt her face redden and turned away, but was pulled back against the woman’s body and a huge soapy hand reached around to scrub the apex of her legs until the tender flesh on her thighs glowed pink. Emily tried to slap her hands away.

  “I can definitely do this bit!” she said, anger and panic seeping into her voice. There came a deep rumbling laugh from behind her that as good as vibrated along her spine.

  “Feels like good nipping there, too,” the woman said, ignoring her complaints before somehow managing to kneel in the small space and wash the length of Emily’s legs, lifting each foot and soaping between the toes, and tsking all the time at the state of Emily’s “paws.”

  The entire body scrub took all of four minutes and left Emily feeling as if a soap-fueled tsunami had crashed over her, but her skin sang and she was warm as toast, and best of all, thoroughly clean.

  She squeezed around in the stall to stand almost eye-to-eye with a gaze as mischievous and sin-soaked as the devil himself. Her heart leapt into her throat. It was too unnerving.

  “Me now,” the woman said.

  Emily tried to slide out without their bodies touching. “Um, I-I’m going to make some tea.”

  “Me.” The shampoo bottle was thrust at her. Emily forgot about decorum and ran for it, her breasts sliding across the woman’s torso, belly touching belly, and not caring at all in her scramble to get out. And she was free! Plopped out from the steamy cubicle and into the cool of the tiny RV. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself, trying to ignore the leery chuckle from behind. Tetchily, she reached over and swung the shower door shut, cutting off the laughter with a slam, though the thin plywood provided no real privacy.

  Emily toweled dry and pulled on clean clothes. She assembled a spare set of clothing for her guest, a ragtag assortment of whatever she had left, which was very little. She’d be damned if that bitch was going to sit around buck-ass naked and laugh at her discomfort. Emily was not a prude, but she felt completely out of her depth in every sense. She had so underestimated the nature of this adventure.

  This would be the time a smart person would make a run for it, she told herself. But to where? Without her weapons, she didn’t have a chance against this predator, especially in the heart of the forest. She’d be chased down in seconds, and she didn’t want to find out any more about a “good nipping.”

  Emily mulled over her options as she lit the gas stove. She had no crossbow, no rifle, and her brain felt as organized as a tossed salad. The woman who was making a mess of her shower could turn back to werewolf at any time and kill her. It was obvious that for the moment, Emily was nothing more than a toy to her, to play with and mentally torture.

  She had to get away. Emily eyed the small Tupperware canister lurking at the back of the kitchen shelf. She had one resource left. Thankfully, she would never run out of tea.

  Chapter Eleven

  Luc rinsed her hair in the cooling water. This was an unexpected turn of events and very much in her favor. Best of all, the crossbow and rifle were now buried under a ton of mud. Her hunter was weaponless. Finally, they were on a level playing field. Luc knew she should make a bolt for it now that she was free, except she too had been under that same ton of mud. She was feeling very beat up and bruised. Not that little Miss Squeaky Clean out there needed to know.

  Luc had to look invincible if she was to cow this human into working for her. This was a nice little setup, a sweet little RV that could take her all the way to the Canadian border. All she needed was for Emily to drive her. There’d be plenty of time for her to recuperate on a journey like that. And best of all, the Garouls avoided humans like the plague. They would not be expecting Luc to have a human in tow, never mind one chauffeuring her to freedom. There was a good chance, in fact a great chance, they would miss her altogether as she cruised out of the valley in this orange hippie mobile. After all, they’re looking for a rogue werewolf, not Mama Cass. Luc was pleased with this new escape plan. It was bold and daring and something new to brag about. She exited the shower to see Emily preparing herbal tea.

  “I left out some c-clothes.” Emily blushed and nodded at a pile of clothing and a towel on the bench seat. Luc liked that she had an effect on Emily. It was something they could explore on their road trip north.

  “Luc,” she said, and began pulling on the old jogging sweats, ignoring the towel. “My name is Luc. You can use it.”

  “Oh.” Emily looked flustered, but didn’t use the name. “I made some tea.” She shifted uncomfortably. Luc supposed it was not every day you had a werewolf for tea, though Emily seemed more than happy to prepare poisoned sandwiches for them.

  She slid into the bench seat across the table from Emily and sipped from her cup. It was pitch-black outside, and Emily had lit a small lantern. The rain drummed on the roof, and the windows were all steamed up with raindrops tracking crazy patterns down the glass. She noticed the side door was slightly ajar.

  “You’re not closing that?” She nodded at it.

  “I need to vent the gas from the stove,” Emily answered in a terse voice.

  Despite the faint draft, the RV had a cozy, intimate feel, and Luc could imagine it was fun to travel around in it, making camp wherever your nose led you. She contemplated the woman sitting opposite her. Her damp hair was dragged back and tied loosely at her nape. It only served to emphasize the angle of her jaw and the long curve of her neck. Her black eye blended with the shadows cast across her face. Luc zoned in on the small ear she had thoroughly scrubbed clean. It brought a sly smile to her lips. Emily shifted in her seat, and Luc noted her high color and discomfort. She still remembered the curves of Emily’s wet body under her hands. The woman glowed in the dim lamplight, and Luc felt her blood quicken. She clicked her tongue against her teeth. She had a hunger and it was not for rabbit.

  “What is there to eat?” she demanded.

  Emily reached in a nearby drawer and pulled out a few bags of chips. “It’s all I got. S-someone stuffed themselves with all the Trekker Bars,” she said, trying to sound cool.

  Luc pulled a bag apart and began to stuff chips in her mouth. She was starving, and at least these were pre-wrapped and couldn’t have been tampered with.

  “I think you’ve got w-w—” Emily watched her eat with dismay.

  “Wisdom? White teeth?” Luc grunted around a full mouth. “What?”

  “Worms,” Emily finished.

  Luc glared at her. “I do not! I’ll have you know my sister’s a vet.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “A twin. But she’s the ugly one, and we have to lock her away from polite society.” Luc crumpled the empty bag and tossed it.

  “A twin sister? I’m trying to imagine two of you in the world. It’s n-not a pretty picture.”

  “Were
wolves have twin cubs all the time.” Luc was licking her fingers clean. “So.” She was tired of the conversation. Time to change it. “You travel far in this bean can?”

  She watched Emily focus on her tongue curling around her fingers. It was a fine, long, healthy pink specimen, and she was proud of it. However, Emily looked embarrassed. Good. Luc was happy to crank up the sexual tension. Emily looked away and tried to shrug nonchalantly, but it was more like a spasm.

  “I-I drove here from Chicago,” she said, trying to regain composure.

  “Chicago?” Luc was surprised. “You came a long way to collect wolf poop in little glass bottles.”

  “I’m visiting. I was b-born around here.”

  “Where here?”

  “L-Lost Creek,” Emily said.

  Well, that explained her hunting habits. Only a local gal could be so slippery in these woods. “I’ve never seen you before,” Luc said.

  “I’ve n-never seen you either.”

  Luc shrugged. Something was bothering her. Something in Emily’s manner, in her speech perhaps? “Well, I went away for a while. I’m visiting, too,” she said.

  “Visiting the rest of your pack.” Emily sounded bitter, and Luc’s curiosity rose. Then it clicked. The stammer. It appeared when Emily was nervous, but went when she had her temper up. So what had been making her nervous earlier? Luc was sure it wasn’t her simmering sex appeal. Her senses went on alert.

  “Pack?” she said.

  “I mean the Garouls.” Emily snorted in derision. “Don’t deny it. I know what the Garouls are. You’re all out of the same fractured mold.”

  I like her much better when she’s bitter. “So,” Luc said, “what of it?”

  “Everyone in town thinks the Garouls are witches,” Emily said. “But I knew different. I spent years watching you all.”

  Oh, this isn’t good. Back to plan A, eat the bitch. “And?”

  “The Garouls are werewolves and I captured one. All those old folk tales about Sasquatch and black yetis, it’s been creatures like you all along, and now I have evidence.”

  “You do not. All you have is a stupid old almanac.” Luc enjoyed teasing her. Emily was such an easy target. She took another slurp of her tea. She was having fun. “And apparently, it doesn’t even have pictures. The Garouls will love that. One of their holy moly almanacs vandalized. You are so dead.”

  “Yes, I have an almanac, and I have you,” Emily said, her voice cool and clipped. She was fighting to keep control of the conversation. Luc had to change that.

  “No,” Luc said with a smile. “I think you’ll find I have you.”

  This was greeted with silence, so Luc expanded on the situation as she saw it. “In fact, I think you and I are going on a road trip. You’re going to drive me to Canada. We’ll make a holiday out of it and camp along the way like regular folks—”

  The RV lurched.

  Luc looked around her worriedly. The walls began to blur and spin. Across the table, Emily watched her carefully.

  “You drugged the tea!” Luc said. No wonder the devious cow had been stammering. She was waiting to see if Luc noticed. Luc was aghast she had fallen for such a simple ploy…again. Emily said nothing but continued to stare at her with those enigmatic gray eyes.

  “You sneaky little bitch,” Luc roared. She made a grab at Emily, who bolted from the table and flew out the partly opened side door, slamming it shut behind her.

  Luc chased after her, snatching at the door through blurred eyesight only to find the handle had been removed. She fell to the floor. The RV was choking and claustrophobic. The dinky furnishings and garish colors swam in and out of focus. The plastic, unnatural odors contracted her stomach. Sweat saturated her skin, but she knew this drug dose was not as strong as before, or maybe she hadn’t ingested as much. In human form, it was overwhelming, but if she could change then maybe it might be manageable in her wolfskin. She grunted as nausea washed over her. She had to force the change, and soon. The clothes she wore were too hot, too tight. She kicked them off. Her body twitched and her guts tightened. Luc closed her eyes and breathed hard into the pain.

  A few minutes later, she sat upright. Her huge hulk took up most of the floor space. On standing, she smacked her head against the roof lining. She stood awkwardly and hunched, panting in the constricted space. Enraged that she had been tricked again, and so easily, she kicked against the side door until it hung askew on its metal runners. The cold night air blew through the opening and calmed her. It filled her head with the soothing smell of the nocturnal forest. She raised her muzzle and sucked in the odor of wet soil and rain-laden foliage…and the faintest scent of coconut shampoo. Excitement bubbled up in her. Emily was within reach. With a roar, she leapt into the night and began the hunt.

  *

  Emily broke into a wobbly run. Her injured leg was killing her, but she had to keep moving. Her only chance was to keep going until the ketamine took hold. Though Lord knew how long that would take, as she had very little left to dose the tea. She dodged low branches and vicious root hooks trying to put as much distance between herself and the RV as possible. She swerved around low scrub brush, cursing her blackened eye and its partial vision. The twists and turns of her ill-conceived revenge had become catastrophic. Loose shale rattled under her feet, and the harsh rasp of her breathing filled her ears. She was making no headway at all. She needed a change in strategy; she needed to find somewhere to hide.

  She hobbled onward and hit a slope, her momentum propelling her forward. Arms outstretched, she felt the soft clay give way beneath her feet. She pitched forward losing control of her balance and speed. The tree loomed out of nowhere and she slammed straight into it, her shoulder taking the brunt. Emily catapulted onto her back and rolled down the steep bank scrabbling for purchase, too weak to slow her fall.

  Around her, the forest roared and shook. Leaves and twigs scattered under her. Roots clawed at her and she clawed back, desperate for a handhold. Then the bank dropped away and she plunged into the roaring waters of the Silverthread. The hurtling cold took her breath away. She surfaced and gulped down air. Thrashing and struggling, she flung herself at the shoreline, but the fierce current, swollen by days of rain, washed her farther out. The stars above swirled and lunged crazily, zigzagging across the sky. And then she understood. She was watching them from underwater. She was held by an underwater current. She was drowning. Her body, numbed and useless with cold, floated just under the surface like river weed. She was slipping into nothingness.

  I’m dying? I came home and I’m dying—

  The water around her exploded. She was hauled by the neck of her shirt out of the river and into the bitter, windswept night. The pain in her body came back tenfold. The river water roared and she was lifted upward, light as a child, and her head came to rest on a broad hairy shoulder. Her face was crushed against dense, wet fur that stank of dirt, water, and bark scrapings and…and…coconuts?

  The world spun as she was carried to the river’s edge and dumped on the bank. Emily retched repeatedly. At last, she lay still and drew a breath, giddy with the air now swelling her lungs. She was wet and freezing and hurt all over, aware only of a microcosm of wet, pungent earth, the scratch of dirt on her back, and two massive clawed feet inches from her head. The werewolf had found her. It had dragged her from the river and threw her here. It stood immense and panting, towering over her prone body, droplets of water falling from its fur over her.

  Then its breath was on her face. First, a mudslide, then drowning, and now my throat’s ripped out. She closed her eyes. Not that it mattered anymore. Her revenge plan had failed, and she couldn’t care less. She was so tired of it all anyway.

  Except her throat was not ripped out. Instead, a massive pink tongue trailed along her left cheek, then the right one and across her brow until her face glowed warm and wet. She was again bundled up into a muscular leathery chest. Coarse fur tickled her nose and stuck to the damp on her face making it itch. She was slippi
ng into a thick fog, into a darkness she accepted she might never stir from, accepting this was death…and then…and then…

  And then she was opening her eyes, and she was alive?

  It was dark and she was warm, too warm. Overheated, in fact. Her mouth was dry and her shoulder hurt. She vaguely remembered running into a tree? Her gaze swam into focus and she found herself staring at the bottom vent of her small built-in fridge. She was lying on the floor of her RV swaddled in a pile of blankets and rugs, and what looked like her gingham tablecloth? Everything was piled up around and over her, like a nest.

  She shifted, aware of a weight along her side covering her like a heavy woolen blanket. That was why she was stifling hot. Emily pulled away. A bottle of water sat on the floor beside her, along with a split tea bag, a twig, two packets of pills, and some acorns. Emily frowned at the strange collection of items. Were they some sort of comfort offerings? At the moment, only one mattered. With great effort, she reached for the water and gulped it greedily. She checked out the pills—her standard painkillers and her Lexotanil capsules. She popped two painkillers and collapsed back into the snug hollow.

  The weight behind her shifted. A wet snout burrowed into her neck just below her ear. Emily froze. This was not a blanket. She was nestled in with the werewolf! So much for the collar keeping them in a single state and malleable. The beast seemed able to transform back and forth at will.

  There was a snuffle, then a sleepy snort that puffed the tendrils of her hair. A heavy, furry arm reached over and covered her, dragging her back into the warmth of a shaggy chest that felt wider than a barn door. She was spooned by an immense body of hard muscle and silky furred smoothness.

  She twisted around until her nose was pressed against a furry throat. She levered backward until the arms holding her relaxed and allowed her a little more room. Emily leaned back and examined the leathery maw before her. The muzzle was squat with thin black lips that rested over the sharpest, cruelest teeth imaginable. The canines were so long they curved over the lower lip. The snout was warm and wet, and the elongated nostrils quivered as they drew in her scent even in sleep. A huge pink tongue lolled from its mouth and traced the teeth, licking the thin lips. It was such a hungry, predatory action Emily worried she smelled like dinner. The leather of the muzzle gave way to a smattering of black fur that grew denser toward the brow and small pointed ears. The head, shoulders, and back were covered with a thick ebony coat, except for the chest and belly area where Emily’s hands rested on sparse hair that barely covered a heavily muscled torso. Heat pounded off the werewolf’s body and she could feel the tremor of its heart against her palms.