Wolf, WY

by A. F. Henley

"Heya, Randy." Isaac's voice was warm and pleasant, and somehow older than Randy knew it to be. "I knew you'd be back."

  Randy tilted his head and looked up, squinting as the lowering sun did its best to make sight difficult. "So you're not too mad at me?"

  "Nobody is," Isaac said with a firm shake of his head.

  Before they had a chance to speak any further, Vaughn was in the doorway with Hannah tugging at his arm. "See?" she gushed. "I told you!"

  For a moment Randy was speechless. Vaughn looked good. His jeans were as scuffed and worn as the surfaces of the mountains behind them, and a grease-stained, blue work-shirt hung open over his shoulders. Though Vaughn's lips stayed close, the emotion dancing through his tired eyes was enough conversation for a hundred lifetimes.

  For the entire drive, each and every one of the twenty-some-odd hours it had taken him, Randy had preached, demanded, and reasoned all kinds of speeches aloud in preparation for that moment. Yet the only word he managed to get his tongue to form was, "Vaughn."

  Vaughn nodded. "Shield Wolf." He tapped the back of Hannah's hand until she released him, and held the door wider. "Come on in. I'll make coffee."

  *~*~*

  The scent of brewing coffee was positively heavenly, even if a nagging voice in Randy's head kept telling him it was too late for caffeine. The aroma was complemented by the smell of an unseen but obviously diligent woodstove or fireplace that managed to keep the house warm but not stuffy, and in an instant Randy was heartsick over how much he missed his own.

  Vaughn set two unmatched, wide-mouthed mugs on the table—a colossal thing that looked like it had been hewn from ancient timber and then varnished once a lifetime for the last dozen lifetimes—and then turned back to a fridge that was startlingly modern against the rest of the kitchen. Even the sink, with its gooseneck taps and marked porcelain finish, looked to be about a hundred years old.

  Vaughn glanced over his shoulder and forced a smile. "I almost feel like a jerk for not knowing, but do you take cream or milk? Sugar? Honey?"

  Randy snickered, and decided right then and there that the awkwardness had to stop. If they were going to work this out, even if it just meant walking away as friends, they had to get past the oh-my-God-I-saw-you-turn-into-a-wolf thing for the time it would take to talk, at least. He winked playfully at Vaughn. "Just call me Randy when the kids are around."

  Vaughn frowned, tilted his head, and spent a couple of long seconds thinking. "Oh. Yeah." He snorted a sound that was probably meant as a laugh. "Sugar. Honey. I get it." He stuck one long arm in the fridge and began to move things aside. "So?"

  "Black, with sugar." Randy pulled out a chair in the vicinity of one of the mugs and sat. "Vaughn—"

  Vaughn didn't give him a chance to continue. "So, are you back to appease your own sense of dignity and give me a formal 'thanks, but no thanks' speech?" He turned and measured cream into the other mug. "Because, if that's the case, I'll take a pass. Don't get me wrong, I understand if that's the resolution you've come to. But honestly? I just don't wanna hear it." He pulled out a chair and sat. Then he looked up, caught Randy's gaze and gave Randy another twitch of a smile. "I can't, actually. I'm too old. Too tired. You know what I mean?"

  Randy shook his head. "No, not really. Maybe the tired part, but not the old part." He set one elbow on the table and leaned forward, closing the space between them so he could lower his voice. "I've seen the rest of you. Nothing on that body is old. It's not even a little worn down."

  Vaughn finally cracked a real smile. "Well, then, what can I do for you? Why'd you come back?"

  "You can answer some questions." Randy pointed at the coffee maker and stood when Vaughn nodded.

  "I did try to do that, if you'll remember. The morning you took off out of here."

  "I wasn't ready to hear the answers," Randy said. He carried the pot of coffee to the table and filled each of their mugs. "I am now. But more important than answers even—"

  Vaughn arched an eyebrow and gave Randy a skeptical look.

  "Yes," Randy said, voice firm. "More important than any questions, or answers, or, really, anything that has to do with this wolf business..." He tucked the pot away, walked back to the table and sat. Then he waited to continue speaking until Vaughn took a sip of coffee and looked up. "I'm here to apologize. I shouldn't have snarked at Hannah and Isaac, and I should have never, ever, in a million trillion years, said that Lyle was fucking crazy. And no matter how angry I was, or scared, or freaked, or worked up, I should have given you a chance to talk. Everybody deserves a chance to speak their side of things."

  Vaughn blew a long breath of air between his lips. "You gotta know that this was supposed to go down a whole different way. It should have been you and me, somewhere private, on a night when I could control the process. Let it happen nice and slow, and show you how pretty and cool the whole thing can be."

  Randy nodded, but didn't bother to say, If you can find a way to make cracking skin and sprouting fangs pretty, you're a better man than even I thought you were. Instead, he disregarded Vaughn's comment altogether. "I'll ask you to forgive me, Vaughn. But I understand if you can't."

  "Of course I forgive you," Vaughn said quietly. "I don't expect a man to be in his right mind after seeing what you saw without any notice or explanation."

  "Okay. Good. Thank you." As if a weight had fallen off of him and made his limbs useful again, Randy finally reached for his own coffee. "I guess that means we can get to the questions."

  Vaughn waved one hand. "Start wherever you want."

  "All right." Randy wrapped his hands around the mug, and though he had a hundred questions running through his mind, after his run-in back in Washington with one of the things that go bite in the night, there was no doubt as to which question was going to be his first one. "What does 'what has been seen cannot be unseen' mean?"

  Instantly Vaughn's jaw tensed. "What did you run into?"

  "A very pale, very attractive man that tried to convince me to allow him to sample a body fluid I find extremely valuable to my person."

  "And?"

  "And I said no."

  "Oh, thank God." Vaughn slumped in his chair. "Never trust a vampire. I mean, ever. I can't stress this enough—"

  "Thanks, Dad." Randy tapped the table with an impatient finger. "But the question?"

  Vaughn sighed and adjusted himself to upright. "The committee has come to the conclusion that it's an instinctual thing that..." He wiggled his fingers as if trying to coax the right word out of the air, "normal...?" He shrugged and Randy got the impression that wasn't quite the word he'd hoped for. "Non-changing humans get reminded of when they're confronted by something out of the ordinary. And once that awareness, that, uh..."

  "Sight," Randy offered.

  "Yes," Vaughn nodded. "Once that sight is reawakened, it's out there, clear as day, and it can't be put back to sleep."

  Randy stopped tapping and pointed instead. "The committee; I heard that word as well. What is that? Or should I say, who is that?"

  "A bunch of people, actually. And pretty much everywhere. They're kind of like an underground governing office for the rest of us. They make it possible for us to keep our secrets, and they're the ones that set up the rules that keep everybody all nice and safe."

  "The vampire said he'd have been hunted down and staked if they found out he'd caused trouble."

  "And he would have," Vaughn agreed. "Lyle, too, if he'd gone one step further and attacked you. They have a zero-tolerance policy on us harming normal humans."

  "So you believe yourself to be human, just not normal?"

  Vaughn leveled their gazes. "Yes."

  Randy twisted his lips into a grimace and frowned. "You mean to tell me that vampire—"

  "No."

  Vaughn spoke the word so fast and so firmly that Randy startled. Immediately, Vaughn reached across the table, as if to pat Randy's arm. He didn't, though. Instead, he patted the table and glanced at the doorway between the kitchen and
the hallway. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. "What we're born with is a mutation that makes things work a little differently. Those guys..." He thumbed at the wall with enough sincerity that Randy was surprised there wasn't a vampire standing there. "What they got is an illness. They started out normal, but something got into them and changed them. We're humans that shift, and even when we're in our other form we still have brains that work close enough to human that we can keep ourselves somewhat sane. Those damn bloodsuckers don't."

  For a minute Randy thought of asking if they were all prejudiced against one another. Then something in his head told him he wasn't ready yet to think about what, exactly, something like 'all' consisted of. He spun his coffee cup and asked, "Will Isaac become one as well?"

  Vaughn shrugged. "In all likelihood, no. I got lucky with Lyle. Or unlucky, if you'd prefer to look at it that way. More often than not the mutation skips one, if not several generations. And the wolf gene is getting rarer and rarer. Wolf used to be full of people like us, and now, even though this area is a specific haven of sorts for our kind, there are only six of us. Well, seven, with Lyle. And the committee says that wolf shifters are almost unheard of on the Eastern coasts and over in Europe. There are still a few packs up in Canada, though. We like the forests and the solitude. That preference changes depending on the type of—"

  Randy held up a hand and gnawed at the inside of his lip. For one, he didn't want to hear about any other types at the moment. For another, he hated getting information second-hand. Especially when Big Brother was involved. If there was one thing Randy had learned during his stint as a lawyer, it was just how little trust one could or should give to a governing body.

  "Who's on this committee? And how do they manage to have all this power?"

  "People who can make sure that as long as we follow their rules, we stay under the radar. Our branch here in Wolf has a director on the Department of Wildlife Services, another with the National Park Services, a member on the Arapaho tribe council, an advisor that's pretty high up in the Governor's Office, and, of course, damn near every executive at the GDBCG. There are actually more of them than there are of us."

  Randy tilted his head. "What's a GDBCG?"

  "The Genetics Development and Biological Connectivity Group. Scientists and researchers mostly. Some of them are trying to figure out how to make it stop, but there is no question in my mind that some of them are trying to figure out if they can recreate it." He lifted both arms in a shrug, and then let them drop on to the table with a slap. "The doctor you saw at the hospital is one of their board members."

  "Which explains the conversation the two of you had," Randy said, musing the concept by watching the dark liquid in his cup as though he were, in fact, some kind of seer.

  "Conversation?"

  Randy shook his head. "Never mind. So supposedly these people make rules that are going to keep you guys safe, but keep everyone else safe as well? The normal humans?" He frowned. "See, I get how they keep us safe with the whole 'We're going to hunt you down and destroy you if you get out of control' thing, but how the hell do they manage to keep you guys safe?"

  Vaughn smiled. "Why do you think all those wolf hunting laws exist out here? There's a reason they keep such careful records on population and migration. And why the law says you have to turn over the body of any taken wolf for genetic samples and provide the kill location. They need to know exactly what kind of wolf met their fate with a bullet, if you know what I mean. And what the hunter might have seen or heard."

  "Or whose wife they've got to go tell that Mr. Wolfman won't be coming home for breakfast."

  Vaughn nodded. "That too. But it's not only the committee and the wolves who know what's going on out here, Randy. People fall in love. People have friends they've known since they were both in diapers. It's a small community and everybody knows everything about everyone. We look out for each other, wolf or not. It's not a cruel joke that the hunting licenses for wolves were only eighteen bucks for a resident, but were a hundred and eighty for outsiders. Or that the State Commission held the right to institute an emergency closure to shorten the season at any time if something comes up."

  "Oh, boy." Randy ran his hand through his hair and closed his eyes. "I am not prepared to start thinking about hunting season."

  Vaughn reached across the table and that time he did rest his palm over Randy's still one. "There ain't one anymore. That's been kyboshed and we're grateful for it. Besides, we're very careful. Even before the new law got put in place to end it, there were laws about how close to sunset or sunrise a person could pull their rifle on a wolf. We're not stupid, I swear."

  "Obviously." Randy offered Vaughn a smile. "I mean, I'm a pretty smart guy and I had no freaking idea that any of this was even a possibility."

  A silence, albeit not entirely unpleasant, settled over the kitchen while Randy got up the nerve to ask his final question. It took him four minutes to manage, and even then, Randy only got the nerve because he heard the approach of cautious footsteps in the hall outside the kitchen. "Where's Lyle?"

  Vaughn's lips tightened into a thin line. "Getting help. I want you to know that it wouldn't have come to him hurting you. I could have managed him myself. This thing he was doing was completely normal."

  "A dominance play, Isaac said."

  Vaughn nodded. "Exactly. But I couldn't run the risk of someone hearing the story the wrong way and suggesting that he tried to harm you. They'd have killed him, Randy, without a second thought. It was easier to ask for their help."

  Randy bit his lip. "What kind of help? What are they going to do to him?"

  "Nothing bad," Vaughn said quickly. "Just some talking and some role-playing and what-not; stuff that's going to help him help himself."

  "Kind of a werewolf psychologist kind of thing?" Randy said, his tone heavy with skepticism. "Sounds suspicious. I get the impression that not everyone holds this committee in the high regard that you do."

  "This is why I tried to keep you away," Vaughn said. "I figured if you were still around afterwards, when he'd gotten through the change..."

  Randy couldn't stop the grin from forming on his face. "You could try and hit on me then instead?"

  Vaughn's smile forced Randy's smile to keep right on growing. "So you did like me, Mr. O'Connell. Even back in the beginning when you were being less than warm."

  Hannah's voice broke into their conversation. "Of course he did, silly. We all did."

  "Hannah..." Vaughn warned.

  "It's okay," Randy laughed. "I'm done asking for now. Can they come in?"

  Vaughn rolled his eyes. "Okay, I guess so." Vaughn mock-glared at Hannah while Isaac popped his head around the doorframe. "But no coffee this close to bed."

  "Eww," Isaac mewled. "Coffee is gross."

  They both ran into the kitchen, thrilled, and Randy turned to Vaughn even as he was caught by Hannah's arms. "You think I can stay here tonight? I'm imagining the house will be mighty cold."

  "Yeah." Vaughn's face lightened into an expression more welcoming than a mere smile. "I'd like that."

  MAY

  The earth underneath his feet was damp, springy, and released an odor rich in decay and growth with every leap he took. Though the dew clinging to his fur was cold, and the deeper, more protected areas of the hills still shrouded their snow patches protectively, he could smell the heat that the not-quite-risen sun was bringing with it. It smelled like spring. Like new beginnings. It smelled like life.

  He slowed to a trot, his muscles worn but well-used, and shook his head at the first slip of sunlight over the horizon. It would be a beautiful day. Of that he had no doubt.

  The mattress dipped behind him and Randy smiled into his pillow. The conscious part of him had been telling the unconscious half that it was sunrise for some time now, but he'd been doing his damnedest to convince his body that his head was lying. The covers were too cozy, the bed was too comfy, and there was no place between Heaven or Earth that made Randy f
eel more perfect than he felt when he was in Vaughn's bedroom. He did, in fact, spend what was probably far too many nights in it, considering he only lived minutes away.

  The weight on the mattress shifted, the oh-so-snug duvet was pulled down his shoulder, and a light scrub of whiskers traced the bared skin of Randy's back. His smile deepened into a grin, he tried to grab the disappearing blanket, and he mumbled, "Just because you get back here at an ungodly hour doesn't mean you get to wake me, you know."

  Vaughn tucked himself against Randy's back, and traced his palm up Randy's arm. "But I missed you," Vaughn said in the low, gravelly voice he always had after a night out. The stroke of his hand became the deeper, more intense movement of massage, and he rocked his hips in a slow, purposeful sway against Randy's ass.

  "Unfair," Randy mumbled. "You know I'm defenseless against morning back rubs."

  Vaughn chuckled and kissed a line down Randy's shoulder. "I only fight as hard as you do," Vaughn said, and the vibrations of his voice woke gooseflesh on Randy's neck and sent pleasant thrills racing to Randy's dick. "After all, you know how much I like the feel of your bare skin. If you really wanted me to stay away, you'd wear those god-awful pajamas your mother bought for you."

  He placed a long, light kiss on Randy's neck, then another, and another, until it seemed that he was doing more tasting with his tongue and grazing with his teeth than actually touching with his lips.

  "If you're hungry..." Randy shivered, pushed back against Vaughn, and had to swallow before he could finish speaking. "I'm sure bagels or biscuits would have more nutritional value than my neck."

  Vaughn's hand fell off Randy's shoulder, traced down his side, and reached around his waist. "But that would only feed my belly." The warmth of Vaughn's palm wrapped around Randy's growing cock and Vaughn squeezed. "I'm not really that focused on my guts right now. There was a rabbit out back that—"

  "Oh, hell, no." Randy pulled himself away and sat up. "You do not tell me about the cute, fuzzy, harmless little critters that you've eat—"