Given her tension the last time her retreat had been invaded, this seemed to be a bad time to waste on dance. But the cave woman didn’t even glance over her shoulder to check for intruders. Instead, she chanted louder while picking up the pace.
Feet stomping, hands waving. Then she began to howl.
Or, I guess, that was singing. Wordless sounds that dove up and down the register, harmonizing with the pack who was now—by my guess—no more than a hundred yards away.
One of the wolves barked, and a command echoed through me. Stop. The word wasn’t in English, but the sensation of slogging through molasses made the intention thoroughly clear.
For several seconds, the cave woman danced on through it. Then she did stop. Stopped...and shimmered down into her lupine form.
The shift would have been shocking one day earlier. But I’d already guessed my alter-ego belonged to a society of werewolves. Of course she would possess a monstrous side herself.
Ignoring the onrush of intruders, she/I/her-wolf leapt onto the altar and took the statue in our mouth so daintily our teeth didn’t scratch the carefully carved fur lines. We lurched upwards, this time back to humanity. The statue fell from our mouth covered in spittle, landed in our hand as we turned to face a dozen dire wolves streaming in the large entrance that was also our way out.
“Mother not wolf,” the cave woman said using words I understood in my gut more than in my rational forebrain. Meanwhile, something inside us twisted as if magic was being ripped away and thrust into the sculpture.
After all, if werewolves existed, why shouldn’t magic also?
Whatever it was, we gave the stored power no time to percolate. Not when the pack was racing to meet us head on.
Instead, we leapt off the altar, slung a leather pouch around our neck and one shoulder, then dropped the sculpture inside. The incoming wolves were inches away when we shimmered back down into our lupine form.
And they were so close that snapping jaws yanked hairs out of our tail tip as we dove into a pool of water that butted up against the rock wall.
I WOKE, GASPING, TO two epiphanies. First, I was cradled in the strong arms of a buck-naked Claw, his body shielding all except my dangling legs from precipitation that had turned from snow to rain while I dreamed. Meanwhile, the puzzle I’d been picking away at for what seemed like an eternity was one piece shy of materializing in my head.
“What happened? Where are you injured?” His voice was as gritty as the hard rock the cave woman had used as sandpaper, but our skin-on-skin contact soothed the abrasion down to the level of a beard burn.
“Shh,” I answered, working backwards from what I was certain of. The cave woman had made a sculpture much like the one Claw had given me. It was meant to help the cave girl with...what? Giving birth to a human child instead of to a wolf?
“Olivia.” My name came out as a growl, our faces so close together our lips nearly met in the middle. But it was his eyes that grabbed me, deep and dark and full of intention. If I didn’t give him an answer, he was going to start pulling words out of me using brute force.
I offered up the bare minimum. “I’m not hurt. I...um...fainted after some guy showed up wanting the wolf sculpture.” It was better not to mention the manhandling involved in the latter encounter. Information relayed, I closed my eyes to block out Claw and help me concentrate.
Yes, that was the puzzle piece I’d been holding onto when I fell out of the cave woman’s body. My epiphany wasn’t related to the purpose of the sculpture, which was still inconclusive. I’d instead made a wild leap and pinned down the identity of the man who cared so much about a prehistoric object that he’d traveled hundreds of miles to question me in the snow.
“Where’s Adena?” I asked, sliding down Claw’s body and opening my eyes so I could peer up at the sky.
And, yes, I noticed the friction of male muscles against my belly. Sure, my nipples pebbled for reasons other than the cold. But there was a more important matter to be dealt with, so I squashed attraction and focused on the puzzle instead.
“Gone,” Claw answered curtly, confirming the fact that the bird hadn’t been with us in quite a while. Adena had been present at the carcass, but not when I was ambushed during my potty break.
It was possible the bird had flown back to the fawn for a second feeding. Or that she’d been enticed by the wild and gone rogue.
But I didn’t think that was it, not given the other evidence. Raising my voice, I tested my hypothesis by yelling into the void.
“Adena! Get down here!” I demanded, using the tone I’d learned from my father. The one so full of command it resembled a werewolf’s seizing of control.
My words echoed off a nearby mountain. Rebounded back to where Claw and I stood barefoot and naked in ankle-deep snow that was beginning to squelch into slush above mud.
We waited for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes. Until I accepted the truth—that Adena had left me for the most obvious reason.
I’d been a short-term caretaker for an abandoned bird while her owner was absent. An owner who’d lost months to an unexpected shift into the body of a werewolf. Who’d fought his animal self so vigorously that the scene of his transformation looked like the site of a violent death.
“My predecessor didn’t die,” I concluded aloud. “Blackburn is a Changed wolf looking for the statue. But we didn’t bring the statue with us, did we?”
“No,” Claw answered after one split second in which I got the distinct impression he was rewriting his own worldview. To my surprise, he didn’t argue, merely filled in my spotty memory. “No time. Val packed the basic necessities. That statue is either back at the plane or they took it when they left with Jim Kelter.”
I took a deep breath, then spoke the words both of us were thinking. “In which case Blackburn will attack them like he just attacked me.”
CLAW WASN’T THRILLED to hear I’d forgotten to mention an assault while relaying my cliff notes version of the time we’d spent separated. Still, he was nothing like my own incendiary monster. After blinking once, the anger of his wolf smoothed away in an instant. Then, shifting to animal form so rapidly he pulled me lupine along with him, he led the way along the track of paw prints Blackburn had left behind.
Hunting, my wolf said with satisfaction. Perfect. And for a while, we were united by our determination to catch up to Blackburn before he found the statue and the President.
But as rain fell harder and tracks became less visible, the wolf’s interest in magnanimous gestures started to dim. Cold, she complained, even though we weren’t really. The rain had barely begun trickling down through dense fur to skin beneath it, although our feet had been sopping wet for quite a while.
Important, I countered, having come to the realization that short sentences were most likely to line up with the wolf’s simple lupine thought processes. I tried to continue with an explanation of how Jim Kelter’s health would impact millions—possibly billions—of people. But—
Not our pack, she grumbled, responding with a vision of me and Claw holed up somewhere safe, dry, and blissfully alone.
The image was painfully seductive, and it took a moment to work my head around rejecting it. In the interim, the exact wolf I’d been thinking of turned around to face us with intent eyes.
We’d halted at a separation of two game trails, our direction to be determined by which one we selected. Should we head right down the hill or go left around and up it?
Half an hour earlier, there would have been no problem. We would have simply followed the paw prints.
Now, all signs of Blackburn’s passing had been washed away by rain.
Chapter 19
Blackburn had escaped us, so we were right back where we’d started. Me and Claw alone in the wilderness with only my hypotheses and guesswork to cling onto.
Or, well, that’s all I had to cling to. Claw, on the other hand, raised his chin to the sky and howled so loudly my wolf was moved to join in.
Curls of sound spun around us. My tired body perked up at the melody. Somewhere in the distance came the tendril of a reply.
Pack? My wolf was confused. She hadn’t realized there were more participants than me and Claw in this partnership. Must have been only vaguely conscious in my human body before our first metamorphosis into her fur skin.
Pack, Claw confirmed, the word materializing like a warm cup of tea in our belly. Then, changing our trajectory, he led us toward the source of the distant howls.
It took us far less time to reunite with the pack than it had to separate in the first place. They must have already been running to meet us. Did wolves have some sort of magnetic attraction to other members of their species? A sixth sense providing pack mates’ location maybe?
Whatever the reason, two wolves and a woman came bounding toward us over the nearest hilltop sooner than I would have thought possible. Val was easiest to identify because she was human. But my inner beast was far more interested in the shifters beside her—a black-furred wolf running in front while a gray beast with a white stripe down its nose followed behind.
The rear wolf shifted upward just as Claw and I returned to humanity, so I lost a moment to the strange intensity of my own transformation. But when I blinked tears out of my eyes, I wasn’t surprised to see that the gray wolf had transitioned into Harry. He still looked like a Disney prince despite a day in the wilderness; even his hair appeared recently combed.
Less predictable was his greeting. “I’m sorry,” Harry started, and I couldn’t understand at first what he could possibly have to be sorry about.
Then the black wolf morphed into a dark-skinned woman. And I realized Harry was apologizing because he’d somehow managed to misplace the President of the United States.
“EXPLAIN,” CLAW DEMANDED, voice so growly it made me shiver.
Val, misinterpreting my reaction, began rooting through her backpack in search of another set of human clothing. Harry, on the other hand, stood even straighter, like a recruit reporting to a displeased superior.
“Theta was watching Jim Kelter,” he said succinctly. “He was moon blind, just like last month. But wilier, constantly testing his limits. Best she could tell, he slipped away sometime during the night.”
If moon blindness was when your wolf stole your body and did whatever the heck it wanted, I could see how the President might have given Theta—the werewolf woman I’d yet to be introduced to—the slip. Claw, however, was less understanding of the lapse.
“You put a pilot in charge of a Changed wolf at the full moon.” Claw was so angry his words sucked all of the oxygen away from the rest of us. I had to turn my head sideways in order to breathe. “What were you doing?”
“You told me to protect Val. I was protecting her.”
And now Harry’s words weren’t so submissive. I risked a glance forward and saw him glaring directly into Claw’s menacing features.
The electricity around us amped up to the point where my hair lifted off my shoulders. My ears rang, while “Alpha, alpha, alpha,” echoed in my brain.
I shook my head to clear it, tried to straighten my slumped shoulders and failed in the endeavor. Watched Harry take a single step forward into Claw’s personal space despite the powerful energy that held the rest of us back.
“You’re not my alpha,” Harry growled. “Jim Kelter is.”
I could feel rather than see that this was equivalent to a medieval knight throwing a gauntlet in the face of another. I fully expected a tooth-and-claw battle to break out while the rest of us remained frozen, unable to do anything other than watch.
With Claw’s intent focus on Harry, though, my muscles loosened enough for me to exchange a quick glance with Val and Theta. They were as certain as I was that this power struggle—dividing our forces while stuck in the wilderness seeking a missing President—was a patently bad idea.
So I did what any sane woman would under the circumstances. I stepped forward to place myself between the posturing werewolves and proceeded to talk them down.
“Okay, guys,” I started. “Maybe it doesn’t matter whose fault it is.”
Val followed my lead, reaching out to grip Claw’s right arm in a restraint that was more metaphorical than practical. Theta hovered inches away from Harry’s left side. Beyond that one shared look, I hadn’t even asked for assistance. A pack appeared to be a powerful asset...as long as testosterone didn’t fuel malcontent.
“Maybe,” I continued, “we should focus on looking forward rather than looking backward.”
“Maybe you should shut up,” Harry snarled. “Our mission is the President. You’re just a thorn in our side. We should have let you die after the crash.”
Claw strode forward and Val squeaked as she was brushed off as easily as if she was a kitten.
“Shit!” Theta swore, lunging to grab Harry’s arm as he mirrored Claw’s advance.
I was stuck in the middle...until I wasn’t. Hard hands—Claw’s hands—landed on my shoulders. He shoved me behind him as Harry raised his chin and opened his mouth to say something further.
Only no words came out. Because Claw had punched him straight in the mouth.
HARRY’S RESPONSE WAS a controlled frenzy. A foot shot out to sweep Claw’s legs from under him at the same moment Harry’s hands went for Claw’s throat.
Danger! my wolf shouted. And I lost it. Didn’t pause to consider the fact that both guys seemed to know what they were doing. Didn’t remind myself that these were friends, or at least co-workers, and that their battle was unlikely to lead to serious injury or death.
My monster’s rage suffused me. Hot anger burned my cheeks and clenched my fists. Then, raising my snout into a howl, we fell down onto four paws.
“Olivia, don’t!”
That might have been Val or possibly Theta. But I wasn’t listening. Was instead lunging at Harry, gauging his center of gravity so perfectly he fell beneath me like a newly cut oak.
In the spot where the men had recently battled, Claw was the only one standing. Vaguely, I noted that he was swearing long and inventively, but I ignored him. Heard but didn’t process his words as he muttered, “Just what we need. Two trials of pack hierarchy in a single day.”
“You’re not going to let them do this?” Val countered.
“Better that it happen here than behind my back tomorrow.”
My wolf was uninterested in muttered commentary. She was in complete control of the situation as our mouth gaped, spittle falling onto Harry’s exposed throat.
“Claw!” Val shouted. “Stop this!”
“Not yet,” Claw answered. “Olivia and her wolf need to decide this between them....”
His words were lost to the rustle of transformation, fur growing beneath us where there had formerly been human skin. Yes, a real opponent, my wolf murmured. She let Harry twist us sideways so we were both standing on four furry feet.
Or, rather, on three feet in our case. My wolf had tucked our injured leg up against our ribcage, but that barely slowed her down as she feinted then leapt for Harry’s throat.
In human form, even rage hadn’t been sufficient to make us risk fatally injuring our opponent. Lupine, we had no such reservations holding us back. We latched onto the loose skin beneath Harry’s chin. Then, using our weight as ballast, we tore and we ripped.
This was war. Harry had struck Claw, not with the reserve of a pack mate, but with the intensity of an opponent going in for the kill. We mirrored that action, our intent to put an end to the danger once and for all.
This, I later realized, was the wolf’s thought process. At the time, however, it felt like mine.
And, for one split second, Harry let us hang there, threatening his existence. Then he responded in kind.
Dropping to the ground to take the weight off his jugular, he lashed out with the full force of his two front paws. Which shouldn’t have done much. After all, my eyes were closed and my nostrils were buried in his fur coat, protecting all s
oft tissue from easy attack.
But my wounded leg was right there, waiting to be reinjured. And Harry aimed directly for my weakest spot.
The bone snapped with an audible crack as my leg bent in an entirely unnatural manner. Yelping, I released Harry’s neck and pedaled backward.
He didn’t allow me to retreat. Instead, Harry bore down on me with jaws gaping and murder in his eyes in the time it took obscuring tears to slip away from my vision.
Surrender, my wolf murmured even as she fell onto her back, never mind the agony as our broken leg twisted further to the side. The universal gesture begged leniency in both dogs and werewolves. Surely it would be enough to prompt our opponent to step back.
Only, Harry wasn’t interested in accepting surrender. He turned aside just long enough to get a better angle on our belly. Then, diving toward us....
“Freeze,” Claw commanded. “And shift.”
Chapter 20
“You won’t set a finger on Olivia now or in the future,” Claw growled. I could smell him advancing on Harry, who’d ended up behind me in that final moment of confusion. “You won’t harm her with teeth, claws, or in any other manner. You’ll treat her like a very important, very precious egg.”
Rain poured across my face as I waited for my turn at chastisement. My wolf was gone, my body once again human. And even though I didn’t particularly like the idea of being an egg, I felt as scrambled as one with all these rapid shifts roiling up my insides.
My broken arm had reset during my recent metamorphosis, but it throbbed and itched as the shift sped up the natural healing process. Meanwhile, my backside was rooted in half-frozen mud and I couldn’t so much as twitch my nostrils to wipe away the raindrops. All I could do was listen to Harry’s dressing down, watch fog rise off the melting snow, and wish I was safely in my lab.
Wolf Dreams Page 10