Oh, yeah, because we can’t control ourselves. I bit hard on my lip, almost drawing blood. If it wasn’t for that, she and I could have been okay together. What kind of sicko would really create a scent to do that? Why did it have to be like such an animal. Why weren’t we allowed to remember and explore our feelings?
All because the mad doctor Danube wanted to keep the ground fertile. Mixing seeds. More than one mate, bigger yield. Fucker. Fourteen years later, and I still couldn’t get away from him.
I still couldn’t get away from it all.
Fourteen Years Ago . . .
/// He stood there, five years old, staring at the blood on his hands. His mother had hidden him behind a thick green leaf, covering his body. He had no name, just a number he was designated, like the rest of his pack. He was Y one zero four two one zero. He was staying still, trying to let his pack take care of the problem. It was a big problem.
The other wolves were attacking them. From behind the leaf, he was watching the slaughter. Growls, snarls and yips were being heard as the meadow was being covered with fresh blood. He kept himself back, heeding his mother’s advice.
Attack only if the pack died. The Y were such a powerful pack, but there were twenty-four others. The A’s through F’s were not so bad, but the G’s through W’s were a terror. The X’s did not even bother them, they had no reason to feel that way. They had more intelligence.
Intelligence with too much brawn was killing his pack though. He looked out into the mix and tried to see his mother and father, but there was no one. He pushed the leaf back down and waited several more minutes before he looked back out. His pack was gone, he now saw the other more intelligent groups fighting.
Even the poor Z’s. What a pitiful sight, such tender flesh being ripped and the screams coming from them. Z’s were projects but could not transform. Z’s weren’t fighters at all, his mother said they were strictly created for breeding. That was apparent, they were getting slashed to bits. No defense. He covered himself back up with the leaf.
Everyone was dying. His home, the gigantic steel place of his birth had been attacked. The wolves had been set free. At first, he lit up and enjoyed the feel of running free with his family. No more painful tests, he would never be a project again. Then, the others started to attack them. It was small at first, but the dumb beasts kept coming. More and more. There were so much more of them.
A loud sound, sharp, came from a small distance. He watched as non-wolves made their way forward. They looked like non-transformed wolves. Almost like Z’s, except they weren’t females and they were wearing clothes. Green and black uniforms with helmets.
Innocents. His mother always told him about innocents. That one day, he would be strong enough to protect them. How could he help anyone though? He looked at his tiny little hands. He was the smallest member of his pack, the last one created.
He heard the last yelp as the last X fell. Glancing around, he realized that there was nothing higher than R anymore. He held his hands tightly together and transformed. He was only a tiny cub, but this was his fate. After hearing the sound of the tender flesh of the Z’s getting ripped, and these human creatures coming into the situation, he had to do something. Soon.
As expected, with everyone out of the way, one of them found him hiding beneath the leaf.
The enemy barked out a signal and he came out. Ahead, the humans were starting to use weapons against the wolves, but two of them had been mauled, their fleshy tearing sound still ringing in his ears.
His father once said that humans were no more special than a Z in heat, but his mother never believed that. Those that could not transform needed protecting. He was created to protect them.
Five years old and a small, tiny snarl inlayed with anger surfaced as he bared his teeth.
Bose stood there, shooting down another wolf. He had yelled for more backup, but there was none. Werewolves. From human back to wolves, they used their advantage over them. They had heard that something had happened, something about illegal projects, but the place had been brought down before they got there. Following animal tracks that had numbered in the thousands, they had followed along.
They were ready for experiments gone wrong. They thought they were ready for anything. Who would expect such a thing as some kind of project with wolves? They were all biting and fighting each other, but as soon as they saw Bose and his crew, it was over. He watched as wolves were taking chunks out of his fellow people.
Then, he heard a strange sound. A tiny, little growl. Turning, Bose saw a small wolf cub. All of the wolves had been black and brown with scattered colors in between. That was the first white wolf he had seen, but there was nothing he could do for it any more than he could for himself. There was nowhere to turn and run, he could only keep shooting until his time was up. Still, he aimed at the wolf nearest to killing the cub. Even if it didn’t survive much longer, he couldn’t bear not to do anything to save it.
Then, his mouth dropped. That cub, that tiny wolf cub, just ripped out the throat of the wolf after it. Three wolves snarled and jumped at him, but the cub jumped straight in the air so high, he landed in a tree.
He landed in a tree. A tiny wolf cub could jump into a tree? Amazed at what he was seeing, Bose realized three more wolves were about to attack him. He held up his gun, ready to shoot but the cub leaped out toward him. It was a growl here, a jump there, and a duck there. It was unbelievable, but true.
The cub had saved him, and he was fine. The little guy seemed to be tearing their asses up. “Holy shit.” Bose spoke no more as he watched. Transforming from a child to a cub, he kept fighting. He jumped the highest, bit the hardest, and ran the fastest. The other humans, like him, were no longer on the wolves menu.
The boy. Everyone went after the boy, but he took down every wolf that crossed him. It was more than that though. He was not harming any humans, and his first targets, were the ones messing with his crew.
The boy may have been a target to the wolves, but he was making his own targets. This was no mere wolf. “That’s a hero.” Many of the wolves scattered, realizing they did not want to mess with the cub anymore.
After all the trouble, the child licked his paw. Red blood stood out against the white fur. Only a few cuts.
Then to his horror, Bose watched one of his crew aiming toward him. “Are you a fucking moron? He saved your life.”
“He’s a wolf.”
“Who saved your blasted life.” Bose yelled once more as he took the gun. He gestured toward the cub. It was not fighting them. “Boy. Do you speak?”
The cub cocked his head slightly. “Of course I do. I’m not one-year-old.”
He spoke. Bose looked at everyone around him. No one else cocked their gun. “He should live. He saved us all.”
“He’s a . . .” one of his men pointed at the boy. “He’s one of those project wolf things though.”
“A good wolf, and if you didn’t notice, we’ve got a ton of nasties that just ran away.” Bose gestured behind them. “They will eventually come, find their way into our area. There’s no preventing that. If we bring this boy back with us, we could teach him more.”
The cub cocked his head the other way. “You’re not my pack or you’d have white fur. You don’t have any fur; you aren’t even wolves. You are humans.”
“Your pack is gone,” Bose told him. “I have seen no white wolves except you.” He watched the ears fold backward. “We were not strong enough, but you are. We can take care of you, if you can help us learn about the ones who escaped from here. Can you do that?”
“You are innocents. Mother always said to protect the innocents.” The white cub paced back and forth. “I will give no information, but I will help protect.”
“Good, that is good.” Bose slowly reached his hand toward him. His fur was sticking up on his back and he growled. “We are not here to hurt you. I am Bose, an official territory leader. Do you know what that is?” There was no sign that the cub knew. “I have fu
ll authority over my territory. I heard about the place you came from, and I was here to help. Things turned sour, but I still want to help you. Stay with me, and I will take care of you.”
The boys ears relaxed and his fur did not stand up as high. “You are not part of my pack.”
“I can still help take care of you.”
The boy paced some more, back and forth before he stopped. “I will help, but you are not part of my pack.”
“Okay.” Bose would settle for that. “What is your name?”
“Y one zero four two one zero.”
“Well, that’s a designation for some kind of experiment, not a real name.” Bose gestured toward him. “You need a new name.” He looked at the cub who transformed back into a boy. That small boy had saved his life. That boy saved so many lives there that day . . . and with the right training, he could save even more. “Hero. That’s who you are, and that’s what you’ll be. Your name is Hero.”///
“Are you in fantasy land?” Greg said, snapping me back to attention.
“Roxie is the last Z. I did not get up to save them, any of them. I didn’t do anything until I was revealed.” I gritted my teeth. “I will not let anything happen to her. If you are hiding anything that will endanger her, I will kill you in the most grotesque and painfully long way I can think of.”
“You know that? I mean, you think that I’m hiding something?” Greg was getting antsy. “I haven’t attacked you. I don’t want you to kill me.”
I put my suit roughly around me and glared back at him. Son of a bitch. “I’ve told you a thousand times. Don’t fuck with me, and I won’t fuck with you. That includes secrets that will hurt Roxie.” I glared at him longer for good measure before focusing on getting dressed again.
“They’d kill me too. With them though, I mean, no mercy.”
I glanced back toward him again, this time with a raised eyebrow. “You think I will show mercy?”
“It’s just that–it’s not something I want to do.” He held up his hands, bringing his left down slightly lower like a scale. “On one hand I tell you and it makes everyone mad, and there isn’t a project out there who wouldn’t want to kill me.” He brought his left hand back up and the right down. “Or I don’t and I will probably have the same fate if you find me again.” His eyes fell to the floor. “I think I’m dead either way. I don’t want to die, I just wanted to be a human.” He pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “If you kill me, will you make it painless at least? Please, it’s not like I have a choice.”
Painless. I folded in my leg over the other and kept my attention on him. “I promise not to kill you, period, if you tell me what you’re hiding now.”
“The other wolves will kill me.”
If there was one thing I learned about Greg so far, it was that he was strangely more human than a wolf. He wanted a human life. He didn’t like to take risks. “Classify yourself openly as a project, and I will buy you privately. I cannot buy Roxie privately that way because she’s a female and doesn’t transform.”
“Bought?” Greg looked at me, dumbfounded. “Like a pet?”
“To the outside world,” I said to him, “to me, nothing. I would be able to keep you comfortable with tight security until we worked out a different identity.” I hope that was enough. I wouldn’t go over the option of him marrying her now, not with this much out in the open.
Greg didn’t speak right away. He sighed, and lifted his head. “It is probably my only choice left. I cannot just let this happen.” He took off his glasses. “Roxie does not know it, but she is being used as your enemy. After all the projects you hunted and killed, it feels like to the other wolves, retribution.”
Roxie. The enemy? “How does Roxie fit into this?”
“Hero, I am sorry. I am, but Roxie is not a z.” He ducked his head down. “Bladon knows. Even her parents knew the truth. She is an original. She is from the same place our ancestors came from, but without any genetic manipulation. A lot of the project wolves predict that she will change.” He looked back over at me. “Roxie might become feral. In fact, they are counting on it, so it hurts you when you have to kill your own mate.”
I blinked. I stood there not knowing what to say to him. Feral?
“It is not guaranteed,” Greg said, “and records are pretty shoddy about where we came from. Even before the massacre, the older ones, they did not know much either.”
“Then why would she go feral?”
“Well, all the projects are wolves. Most are feral.”
All were feral. Besides Greg and Roxie, they were all feral. “Where did she come from?”
“Details are sketchy. Her parents would say left in an alley or something. There’s a story that Bladon’s father told him though. He said we got to where we were through a wormhole that closed up. Roxie came from a different wormhole that opened. It is believed that one day she might have the power to return back home, across the galaxies of space.”
“A wormhole?” Ridiculous. “Even if she changed, what would make them think that?”
“Little is known about the originals because they just left. We are used DNA for when they were here. At least, that’s what I heard from a couple of W’s.” Greg coughed lightly. “You might not believe because they are not as intelligent, but the W’s do speak to me with no ill will.”
A wormhole? Could anyone really have that power? I had extraordinary powers. The X’s could manipulate scent. Could Roxie have some kind of gravitational power?
“That is just a rumor though, and just as many wolves believe that when she hits full maturity, she will become feral like them.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“You have known her existence and location for years, you have to know.” I grabbed him by his collar roughly. “When does she reach full maturity? Her true birthday, her true time of birth, is it known?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Greg looked away. “Tonight, Roxie Malone is probably going to go feral. You don’t have to worry about marrying her.” He scratched his head. “But killing her isn’t that much better.”
“She’s a Z!” I shouted, not wanting to believe. “She follows everything about a z. The scent and the amnesia is real.“
“I can’t really explain it.” Greg sighed. “Maybe the ability the Z’s had to breed and forget, maybe it was part of the original makeup. No one knows. I mean, she might not even recover her missing memories like a Z. I don’t know.” He dawdled with his fingers. “I can’t tell you anything. Documentation on her was probably the first thing to go when the lab was ran over.”
“She acts like a z.” My voice felt dry, sounded dry. “She acts like a z.” I moved away and sat down in a chair. A pure wolf from wherever in the universe we all came from.
“When she stops acting like a z, you’ll have no choice.”
“I’ll . . .” I’d have to kill her.
If she went feral, I would have to kill Roxie.
Chapter 10: An Adventurer’s Dilemma
~Roxie~
The limo was nice. The press was the same as last night, but only on the outside. No one was allowed in. The restaurant was different, outfitted in a huge tent for some reason. (I suppose publicity was getting to be a pain in the neck?) The outfit layout had been changed to a slightly lower blue with no tightening garter. It still had the same matching necklace, earring and purse thing. Everything seemed the same tonight, except Hero. All night long, he didn’t even want to look me in the eyes. When dancing music came on, he didn’t move. “Hero?” I finally asked, trying not to think of the negative situation that happened last night. I didn’t want him to shoulder than on himself. “Do you want to dance?”
I heard ‘one last time’ beneath his breath but it was so extremely low, I couldn’t be sure. He got up gruffly, grabbed my hand and led me out to the dance floor. While we danced, he didn’t look at me.
“Okay, what’s wrong?�
�� I had to ask. “You were all about looking at each other last night for the press, and you haven’t met my eyes barely once tonight.” I groaned. “Is it the maybe marriage thing I said with Greg?”
“Maybe,” he answered softly. “Would you have?”
“I don’t know?” I breathed hard. “I don’t want to marry anyone, you know that. I know Greg isn’t as strong but-“ I looked back toward him. “Wait, what do you mean would have? Is there another option now?”
He didn’t answer. Oh, I hated when guys went all mysterious. It did not make him cuter at all. I even seemed to growl at him, which was weird. I don’t think I ever growled. The reaction caught his attention too. “Sorry.” I looked away. “When will the food be ready?” I knew it was a bit tacky, but suddenly my stomach was starving, almost like it hadn’t eaten all night. “Will there be steak again?” Yes, please? “Chunky, meaty steaks. I don’t know, I am craving something rare.” My words almost seemed to stab him as he winced and looked away. This dance wasn’t half as pleasant as the other night.
Was that what had bothered him? “Last night, Hero. I know it wasn’t perfect, but I remember the good parts too.” Did that help? His eyes showed no change. “What? What is it?”
What was that? That look, that almost pitiful look, but not quite. He touched my cheek tenderly and kissed it. I tried to keep up to look good for any press that might have snuck inside, but when he licked my cheek too, I had to draw the line. “Okay, Hero, down boy,” I chuckled. His tense expression didn’t change though. I was becoming more nervous every second. “Hero?”
“If anything happens, I will do what I can,” Hero announced, “I swear, I’ll try not to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you, Roxie Malone.”
Uh? I backed up from the dance. Talk like that. Where was it from? This growling inside of me, it was cutting even deeper inside. I had this strange, intense need to start doing something.
Wolf in Hero Clothing Page 10