Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga

by Carol Wolf

  I managed to get an arm up before the first blow struck. I managed to ride the backhand that followed by shuffling a little out of range. I managed to back away before he grabbed me. I stepped to the side before he backed me against the tub with the lemon tree, or trapped me in the space between the tub and the gate, the heavy blows falling faster and harder.

  “Bitch! Idiot! Cunt! I am so going to make you pay!”

  I heard the evil vet squawking some kind of protest. He turned on her with a snarl, and I ducked back, out of range for a moment, and through the only opening available, into the orchard where I would have a bit more room to move. And there I was.

  Right in the trap.

  When my stepfather moved in, he made a point of teaching me and my brother Luke what the new pack order was. When he was certain we’d learned our place, his four sons took up the lesson. My oldest stepbrother, Tillman, chased me down every day, pinned me, held me down and laid into me until he was satisfied that I’d submitted sufficiently. He kept at it until he got me to submit without fighting him, through four memorable months. He left after that, since he had a job and a place elsewhere. His brothers stayed, though, and they picked up where he left off. Finley's smell, his sweat, his sneer, brought up the remembered rage and shame I’d retained from those lessons. That bile filled my throat and stomach again now as I backed away, step by step, holding off his heavy, open-handed blows, catching them on my forearms, riding them when I could not stop them, keeping them from landing where they would damage me the most, while I tried to blot out the practiced venom of his words. Ducking, blocking, keeping myself whole. Not on the jaw. Not on the joints. Not on the lower ribs. I heard myself make the little grunting noises that meant I was losing, and I burned with fury, hatred and shame at the sounds.

  Deep in my belly my panic and fear told me again what I’d learned from all those old lessons: that I was already beaten, that it was only a matter of time before Finley did anything he wanted to me. I clenched my jaw against any further little noises. The rage rose in me, hopeless though I was. I was not going to give up.

  I dodged a tree at just the right second, and the blow fell on the trunk instead of on me. I enjoyed the welling satisfaction, and the sound of his curses, and respite from the blows that didn’t fall because the pain had disturbed his rhythm. One for me, and I hadn’t even touched him.

  I couldn’t change, because the evil vet was over there somewhere, and she had her gun. If there's a gun around, you want to be in human form. Anyone can get away with shooting a wolf, especially one in their yard. In any case, changing to wolf form in a fight just meant that Finley, in his wolf form, could do things to me that humans couldn’t get away with. Right down to my bones, I did not want to go through that again.

  His hands came down like hammers, blows meant to disorient, weaken, diminish. Blows that I knew from experience would not stop until I couldn’t stand up anymore. Stepping backward, I tripped over a pile of tree stakes, six feet high and almost as thick as my wrist. Someone had a plan to prop up this old orchard, but crashing down on the pile nearly ended the fight. Finley, grinning, launched himself to land on top of me. I twisted out of his way, pushed some poles between us and came up again. Finley was on his feet as well, with one of the poles in his hand. Oh, shit.

  He tried to strike me with it, but it was too heavy to move very fast, and I avoided it easily. He stabbed at me with it, and I sidestepped, and then grabbed it and used the pole as a lever to shove Finley into a tree, but he dropped it before he struck, stagger-stepping to remain upright. Then he came at me in a rush, hammering at me now with his fists. He was angry.

  The evil vet came into the orchard. I heard her crying out at him. He left me and headed for her at a run, and she backed out and slammed the gate shut. I moved to better my position, further out among the trees, away from the fence where he intended to pin me. Then he came for me again. Don’t let him damage me, don’t let him grab me. Once he had hold of me, since he was stronger and weighed more, he could throw me around however he liked, and I wouldn’t be able to protect myself.

  I was gasping now, as he laid in to me methodically, not hurrying, not breathing fast, the satisfied smirk on his face just like his dad's. Each blow falling on my bruised arms felt as though my bones might crack, they ached so much. But still I reached to block the blows that fell. My head rang from the ones that had connected. My lip was bleeding. I had to stay out of his grasp, hold him off as best I could, as long as I could.

  He would beat me until I was exhausted. He would put me on the ground and beat me until I couldn’t move. He would make sure I knew I was beaten. Then he would haul me off and take me back to my mom's place, where I’d have to go through this again and again. There were tears in my eyes, and I hated that too. A low growl started in my chest, almost too low for human hearing. Finley heard it, heard in it my defiance, and cursed me again. He came at me harder, and faster. If he grabbed me, I was done. I knew that.

  I realized why he was holding back on me, why he hadn’t ended this already. He wanted me to change. He wanted to pin me, screw me, roll me, make me piss myself. He wanted that complete subjugation. So his blows were a form of taunting, trying to get me to bite.

  It's amazing how quickly you tire, when you’re being beaten. I can run all day. I can hold my own in a fight for quite some time, but being beaten shakes you at your core, weakens you, drags out all your strength, makes you see only one way out of this situation, and that was to give up, to submit, or to die.

  His blows slammed into me and I couldn’t stop them. The anger in me rose and touched my heart. As I backed away through the thick grass, dodging the trees when he tried to drive me into one, turning away again so he couldn’t back me into the fence, it occurred to me that this was taking longer than it should. He should have beaten me by this time. He always had before. I blocked another blow, and they were definitely coming slower now. It seemed to me that despite his weight and despite his strength, he wasn’t as big as he used to be. I met his eyes. I didn’t have to look that far up to do it.

  My rage began to sing inside me, as I felt myself grow with my anger. Now a growl came from him, a purely human sound of fury and frustration. I grinned, showing him my teeth. He roared at me and lunged, and grabbed my wrists. He tried to pin both of them in one big hand, so he could beat me with the other one, but as he grabbed me, I changed, just my arms to my wolf forelegs, just for a moment, so when he grabbed, the shape he was expecting wasn’t there, and I slipped out of his grasp, and in his moment of confusion, I gained a few steps on him, backing off and moving away from the high wooden fence. The growl deep in my throat was louder now. He stared at me for a moment in surprise. I was dizzy with pain, my arms, shoulders and ribs ached, and my stomach where he’d gotten in a good one. But I wasn’t beaten yet. I was stronger now, and faster, and I knew more. There was a chance, just a chance, that I would get lucky.

  He lunged and grabbed at me again, held me tight and tried to turn me and get an arm lock on me, and there I was with my head close to his shoulder, a bit bigger than I was before, and I changed, just my head, just for a moment, and in that moment I got his shoulder just below the neck in my wolf teeth and bit down as hard as I could. The taste of his blood was like the nectar of the gods.

  He threw me off with a roar that was partly a scream, but I landed easy, out of the range of his arms, and grinning like a fool, his blood on my lips. He clutched his torn shoulder with his other hand, the blood welling through his fingers like the goo spilling out of a donut.

  “You rabid bitch! I will get you for this. Dad told us to give it to you, but I was going to go easy. But you’re going to pay for this now!”

  His eyes slitted, he stomped toward me, his hands out, ready to grab. I backed away, still enjoying the sight of the blood that smeared his hand, and trickled through his shirt. He charged me, raining down blows with his fists. He didn’t seem so fast anymore, or nearly so big. And it didn’t seem so c
ertain that he was going to be able to beat me. I tried to use new angles of my arms to block his blows, to spare the pulsing bruises I already had, but I was sure now that they wouldn’t fail, that they would be strong enough to keep the rest of me intact. I smiled.

  As his fist rose again, I stepped in, instead of back, and unleashed my rage and grew, and again changed just my head, just for a moment, and snapped at his nose. He jerked back, but I hooked the edge of one nostril on a lower canine, and it tore. You gotta know that really, really hurts.

  He screamed and changed and leaped at me all at once and I went down beneath a flurry of teeth and blood and fur, holding his jaws away from my neck with my hands, and laughing hysterically, because his wolf nose was askew, and it was bleeding like mad, and he snarled, trying to push his jaws between my hands and rend my throat. And then suddenly he jerked and yelped, and twisted off me. He staggered a few steps in a half-circle, and then he fell, partly across my legs.

  Finley's big, as a wolf. I pushed him off me and got up, panting and covered with blood and saliva—his—and sweat—mine. The vet, a pistol held away from her side in one hand, grasping a big leather dog muzzle and a come-along in the other, ran toward me, her face as shocked and tearful as though she was the one who’d been attacked and beaten for the last ten minutes.

  “Are you all right?” She dropped down next to Finley and looped the come-along around his neck.

  “Me?” What a stupid question. I caught myself as I reeled, my body one big ache, with flares of more intense pain where I’d taken bad strikes. I was going to be red, white and blue for at least a week. I looked down at Finley at my feet, blood streaking his fur, and his nose all askew, still bleeding. I grinned. In fact, I really was all right. “Yeah. I’m fine. Hey, thank you.”

  “I didn’t know he was going to do that. I swear, I didn’t know.”

  “No?” I wondered why I was having trouble talking, until I realized I was still gasping for breath. “What—did you think—he was going to do?”

  “He said he would take care of you.”

  “Yup,” I managed. “That's how he does it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, while I just stood there and breathed for awhile, enjoying the view over the orchard, and up the hills beyond the fence, and the pointy mountains beyond. And the fallen foe at my feet. An elation grew in me as I stared down at Finley's still form. He hadn’t beaten me. Not this time. And he wasn’t going to. Even if the vet hadn’t shot him, he wasn’t going to beat me. I was going to beat him. I took deep breaths. My arms felt like professionally tenderized meat. My shoulders hurt. I ached almost everywhere. But deep inside I felt a tide of joy. I felt like throwing back my head and howling out my triumph. Ha.

  “I was going to beat him,” I told Elaine.

  “He's awfully big,” was all she said.

  I looked at her. “You knew he was coming.”

  She held my gaze, the sunlight glinting on her glasses. Then she nodded. “There’ve been these cards. He sent them to vets all over the area. Maybe all over the city. You see them everywhere.” She took a dog-eared postcard out of her pocket. It had a picture of a gray wolf pictured on one side. It wasn’t me, but most people can’t tell wolves apart, unless the markings are really distinctive. The other side of the card was addressed to Elaine at her office. A printed message said, “Have you seen or heard of a wolf hybrid in your area behaving oddly?” It gave Finley's cell number. A wolf hybrid? That was funny, in a way.

  I sat down. It seemed like a good idea. I pulled my legs up and leaned my back against a tree, behind Finley's head where he couldn’t see me at once if he came to. “So you called him?”

  “I just thought he would get rid of you. Or know how to get rid of you.”

  “Get rid of me?”

  “Because, you know—I though you were some kind of monster! I didn’t understand you.”

  I wouldn’t have thought I had anything left in me, but I felt my eyes change. “And why do you think it is for you to understand me?”

  She stared down at Finley. I closed my eyes. After a moment I heard her say, “I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t respond. After a moment she went on. “He said… he said he raised wolf hybrids. That he’d sold one up in the San Fernando Valley, but it had gotten away. I didn’t know—he didn’t say—that he was like you.”

  I opened my eyes. “He didn’t say that he's my stepbrother?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well. He wouldn’t.”

  “You ran away from home?” Her eyes behind her glasses were tear-stained. No one had ever wept for me. It was disconcerting.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I don’t blame you. I couldn’t… I saw my Aunt Sarah's husband beat her once. I was just a kid. He came into the house, roaring, and she just dropped into a ball on the floor and took it.” She shook her head, trying to dislodge the memory. “I hid under the table. I can still remember the sounds. It was terrifying. When he went after you…” she nodded at Finley. Her glasses glinted. “I was wrong about you. You really aren’t under a curse, are you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “No. And you don’t change into a wolf because your demon granted you that wish.”

  “No.”

  “No. You’re a shape-changer.”

  “I am one of the wolf kind,” I told her.

  “And so is he.”

  “Yes.”

  “And—there are others?”

  “Lots.”

  “Oh.” After a moment she said, “What do you want to do with him?”

  “He's not dead, is he?”

  “No, but he will be soon, if I don’t do anything. The dart contains nicotine, which knocks animals out real fast…” She met my eyes and then hers wavered and looked away. I remembered how fast I’d been knocked out, not too long ago. She continued, “He's going to die if I don’t give him the antidote.” She took a small hypodermic out of the pocket of her sweater.

  I looked down at Finley. He lay utterly relaxed, his legs splayed, his head back. His breathing had slowed. Blood still dripped from his slashed nose, and pooled under his shoulder. It was hypnotic to think we could just sit here, and do nothing, and he would die. And I hurt. I was tired. It would be easy.

  “Is that what you shot me with?”

  “That's right. But I gave you the antidote right away. We really didn’t want to hurt you.”

  I thought about answering that. There was a snappy answer out there that would include my time in the cage, the time the wounds had taken to heal, the terror of being in two forms at once, at being helpless, and that stupid dog… I closed my eyes.

  Elaine's voice jerked me back. “I’m sorry. I can’t just let him die.”

  “When he wakes up,” I warned her, “he will come after me again. And he will come after you. He won’t stop. And he will mean to hurt you.”

  The not-so-evil vet stared down at Finley. “Maybe I’ll try and call Curt. If he has some of those silver binders already charged we could try and—”

  “Wait. Those little hooks?”

  I got up, which was unexpectedly difficult, and made my way out of the orchard, which seemed like a long walk, and went back to my car. By the time I headed back, holding the bandana from my glove compartment, I’d gotten accustomed to the pain at every step, and my short-breathed exhaustion.

  When I came back into the orchard, the vet was kneeling next to Finley, a discarded hypo beside her. She’d fixed the muzzle around his head, which almost didn’t fit. From her pocket she drew out a lighter and a wad of tinfoil which she picked open. I jerked as I recognized the scent. It held a small block of that stuff that made the smoke, and she lit it like a cone of incense.

  I moved to avoid the smoke and the memories it brought back.

  She wrapped the burning block loosely in the tinfoil and fixed it inside the muzzle, near the corner of Finley's jaw.

  “That’ll hold him.”

  “Here.” I opened
the bandana and dropped it on her knee. “Will those still work?”

  She recognized them all right. “Sure.”

  “So, stick ‘em in, and let's put him on a plane to a country that doesn’t accept wild animal imports.” There was a story about a cousin who’d gotten stuck like that. Forever.

  Elaine just sat there, staring at Finley. “I pinned your hind leg,” she said. “I was just about to pin your foreleg when you moved. Your eyes opened, and you… you started to change. Your eyes… they were human, but yellow. And the foreleg I was holding—it was human.”

  “I was trying to change.” Even mostly unconscious. Good instincts.

  “I pinned it so fast. I was scared. I’d never seen anything… I couldn’t stand you staring at me.” She looked up at me, her face crumpled, like a kid caught doing wrong. “We took you to Aunt Sarah so no one would see you. No one goes out there. You looked so…” She shook her head. “That's why we thought it must be a demon. Or a curse. It looked like one!” She got up. “We can’t just pin him. He’ll get out of it, just like you did.”

  Well, I’d thought letting him die was the best idea yet.

  “Watch him,” she told me. “Make sure that tinfoil doesn’t slip. I have to get my bag.” And off she went.

  I watched closely. Finley went on bleeding, but he hadn’t stirred when Elaine came panting back carrying her big black vet case. She unlatched it and got out a set of wire cutters, picked up one of my silver hooks and started snipping it into little lengths.

  “Hey!” Those were my trophies, and she was wrecking one.

  “It's not the hook,” she told me, not stopping. “It's the silver. Curt charged the silver to hold the spell that keeps you from changing back. I mean, from changing, in your case.” She paused and looked up at me. “However did you… ?”

  “I got them out first.”

  “Oh.” She went back to snipping when she saw I wasn’t going to tell her any more. Why give away my methods?

  “Well,” she said. “He's not going to do that.”

  She rummaged around and brought out a black plastic case from the recesses of her bag and snapped it open. It just held another hypodermic, but it had a big needle. “This is what we use when we tag an animal with a subcutaneous transponder.” She set it aside and got out a bottle of alcohol. She dunked one of the little lengths of silver wire in a capful and loaded it into the syringe, and I began to smile. Finley was never going to change again. I leaned back against the tree and thought about that.