Dirty lying wolves, p.18
Dirty Lying Wolves, page 18
He continued, “Thanks, New Bite. I owe you for this. I’ll talk to Amelia and the others later so we can try to piece this together.”
“Yeah, of course.” I looked away, scratching an itch on my arm and scanning the field around us. “So, you were working out?”
“Yes. The warriors come here regularly, but anyone is welcome as long as they don’t get in the way. Interested in a run around the outer track?” Dom teased.
“Ha-ha, very funny,” I said, though my eyes followed the worn dirt ring around the field. “And what are you doing out here, anyway? You should still be resting.”
“It’s fine, I’m not here to train, just to watch. Come on, let’s get a seat and see what Smokey puts Amelia and the others through. It will be fun.”
As I followed Dom the rest of the way around the field, I could see Smokey talking to the others. He was pointing to the logs and saying something or other to Jack and Aaron when we got close. When we were near enough to take a seat in some of the remaining grass by the tree line, Smokey turned around.
“Well, hello, there, girlie. You here for some training?” he asked.
I put my hands up in front of me. “No way, I came along with Carmine and Jerod. I’ll just watch.”
“Hm.” Smokey scratched his chin. “I’ve wanted to see what that Carmine can do. Where is she?”
Amelia looked over, a sour expression on her face. “They’re fucking.”
I looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”
She grunted. “This soul-tangling thing is not completely unlike a mating bond, apparently, because I can feel everything they’re doing through their ownbond. That Carmine has strong and frequent urges. It’s been a glorious week.”
Jack snorted a laugh.
“Oh my god,” I said, my face flushing. “They’ve been going at it—”
“Nonstop, I know,” Amelia grumbled. “Smokey, give me my next damn exercise, will you?”
Smokey gave her a wicked grin. “To the rock with you.”
Amelia stripped her clothes and shifted. Then Smokey looked me over again, staring at my legs in particular. “You look like a runner. You a runner, New Bite?”
I looked down at my legs too. They weren’t as big as they had been when I was in track, but they still had some size to them. Not to mention the thirty or so pounds I’d gained in the last few years since I stopped running.
“I used to but not anymore,” I said.
Smokey grunted. “We’ll see what your wolf has to say about that.”
“Smokey, what do you want me to do?” Carson spoke up.
Smokey turned back to the wolves he was evidently training and pointed around the field again. “Aaron and Jack, you two at the logs for some back and forth. I don’t want to see those weak-ass front legs again. Fix it. Carson, you need more laps, you were dragging behind yesterday and you better be ready to go until I say stop.”
Carson made a face but nodded. “Yes, Smokey.”
“Looks like he’s here,” Smokey mused. Dom smelled the air and his eyes widened.
“Who’s here?” I asked.
Dom grinned. “An old friend from Salt Fur.”
A huge wolf emerged from the woods. He had mostly white fur and blazing yellow eyes. Dom and the others weren’t the only ones to notice him either; most of the heads in the field turned toward the wolf as he walked down the path and straight to Smokey. He was quite close before I took my eyes off of him and noticed the two smaller wolves that followed. One gray, the other a mix of gray and white. All three of them were carrying something in their mouths.
“Nathan, you made it,” Smokey said.
The wolf barked a sort of laugh, definitely looking amused, and dropped the fabric from his mouth. The others did, too, then they shifted. Fur fading to skin, limbs rearranging themselves. And then we had three more naked bodies in the field, before the two men and one woman pulled on some loose athletic clothes.
The big wolf was a total jock type. Blond, tan, dimples, biceps the size of a cantaloupe, the whole nine yards. The girl had cropped black hair, light-brown skin, enviable cheekbones, and a smile that lit up her face. She caught me looking at her and winked. And finally, the last one was a bored-looking teenager. Permanent frown, messy brown hair, and obviously uninterested in whatever they were doing here.
“Smokey, you old bastard,” Nathan said, and pulled him into a hug.
“Thanks for coming, Nate,” Smokey said.
“My pleasure.” Nathan turned to Dom and pulled him into a hug as well. “As soon as you said I’d get to kick this guy’s ass, I was in.”
Dom laughed and slapped Nathan on the back as they hugged. “Is that what you’re doing here? I thought you didn’t leave Salt Fur.”
Nathan chuckled and let Dom go, looking around. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”
“You don’t need all that fancy shit you got back home,” Smokey said. “As long as what you’re lifting is heavy, you’ll gain muscle.”
Dom shook his head as Nathan chuckled.
“Same old Smokey,” he said. “Guys, this is Anna and Matt. My future beta, and my little cousin.”
At the mention of a beta, Dom looked at Anna with assessing eyes. She did the same. While they were doing that, Nathan turned his attention to me.
“Oh, um. I’m June,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
“You smell interesting,” Nathan said, looking at me with confusion on his face. Dom shifted slightly toward me, crossing his arms.
“She’s new bite,” Smokey said. “Might turn this moon. Who knows.”
“Ah.” Nathan nodded. “That makes sense. Nice to meet you, June. Good luck this week.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“Whelp,” Smokey said, clapping his hands. “Let’s get started. Amelia! Get over here.”
We looked at where the wolf was ramming herself against the boulder in the center of the field. She turned our way and visibly sighed as she stopped what she was doing and walked toward us.
Dom chuckled, pulling me aside and sitting down by the trees.
“Let’s watch the show,” Dom murmured. “I’m sure this will be an enlightening experience for you.”
I had barely sat down when Smokey leaned over and told Nathan something. Nathan nodded and charged at Amelia, still in his human form.
I gasped as I watched Amelia pick up speed, seeing what he was doing. They collided, and Nathan’s muscles bunched impressively as he rammed into the big gray wolf in front of him and slammed her on her side.
“Nathan’s an alpha’s son, he’ll be in his father’s shoes pretty soon,” Dom said.
I turned to Dom, alarmed. “He’s going to have to kill his dad?”
“What?” Dom’s brows furrowed. “Oh, no, nothing like how Evander came here.
“It’s not always like that. If it’s an alpha just handing off the title to their kid, it’s different. Of course, if the pack doesn’t think the kid can take over and be a good alpha, you can still have someone else step in and challenge it, but that’s not a common occurrence. In Nathan’s case, there will be a big celebration and he’ll fight his dad, but not to the death, then there’s a cake.”
I snorted a laugh. “What an anticlimactic way to end that sentence.”
Dom shrugged. “Who doesn’t like cake?”
The culture of this place was fascinating. On the surface the strength and aggression were frightening at first, but I’d come to view them all as athletes of sorts. They weren’t here to hurt each other, not really. Other than that business of overthrowing an alpha, I guess.
A hand brushed mine, and I turned to Dom. “You’re going to do great at the shift, I know it.”
“How can you be so sure?” My own stomach had turned more than once thinking about it, but all that talk of getting in my runner’s headspace went a long way to making me feel like I had some control.
“Instincts? I’ve been in some bad business for a long time, and you either learn to read people or you get in a lot of bad situations because of it.”
“You don’t talk much about it,” I said softly. “The things you did before. I get that you worked for Apollo, and he was some kind of evil in the world. You were on that drug, and you left Moonpeak to get away from Evander.”
“We left to get stronger,” he insisted, then eased his tone. “We were always going to come back, but we knew we were just kids. If Alpha Liam could be killed by Evander. If my dad, the warriors, everyone else we looked up to could be killed so easily, we needed time, age, and skills that weren’t on our side back then.
“I did a lot of shit I’m not proud of.” He turned to meet my gaze. “We killed people. Not humans, but other creatures out there that were in the same business as Apollo. Theft, drugs, territory wars, we did his bidding for all of it.”
“And you liked it?” I asked, caution tightening my throat.
He was quiet for a long time before answering. “No, but we saw it as necessary. I’m not sure if it was, not sure if it was the right way to get what we wanted, but here we are.”
“You don’t want to go back down that path,” I observed.
“No,” he said. “Never again.”
I reached over and wrapped my fingers around his, wanting to comfort him even just a little. “My grandad didn’t talk much about his time in the navy, but he did say one thing that I think he’d want you to hear right now.”
Dom’s brows lowered. “And what’s that?”
“It’s easy to judge who you were and what you did before, but it’s who you are going forward that matters the most.” I squeezed his fingers a little tighter. “He’d sum it up by saying everyone loved the guy who climbed uphill, ’cause not everyone can keep that up for long.”
“How poetic,” Dom said after a while.
“He was a romantic at heart, that’s for sure.”
“Climb uphill, huh?” Dom murmured.
Smack. I jumped where I sat, then looked over to see Amelia with her teeth sunk deep into Nathan’s shoulder. He grunted and lifted her again, smacking her down onto her back.
“Oof.” I cringed.
“Welcome to wolfhood.” Dom chuckled.
I watched, engrossed in the sights before me. Anna and Matt both took part, taking turns with the exercises and running with Jack, Aaron, and Carson. As for Nathan, his attention was wholly on Amelia, and for the rest of the day, I watched Nathan the man, and then Nathan the wolf, beat Amelia six ways from Sunday.
Enlightening indeed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
June
“What is that for?” I asked. I was sitting at the table in the kitchen eating a late breakfast of oatmeal and sausage links with Hannah. Linda held up a piece of little black lingerie.
“It’s a robe, dear. It’s so you won’t be uncomfortable in your nudity before the shift.” Linda gave me a warm smile and laid the garment over the back of an empty chair.
“I will take this opportunity to go for a walk.” Bianca was dressed in a green jumper today that made her braids pop. She had finished her breakfast as I came downstairs, greeted by Linda and the robe, if you could call it that for how short it was.
“Have fun, dear,” Linda said as she took Bianca’s plate and began to rinse it in the sink.
The newest visitor stopped by me just long enough to pat my back. “Your comfort is priority. Your wolf will have an easier time coming out if you have fewer worries distracting you.”
Offering her a weak smile, I nodded. “Thanks.”
She gave my back one more pat before leaving through the front door, and I turned back to eye the garment.
“Lots of wolves wear them around,” Hannah said, then took another bite of food. “Oo ont ee vee ony one.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Linda scolded.
Hannah swallowed. “Sorry. I said that you won’t be the only one.”
My mouth was a grim line as I nodded. “Is it required?”
“Goodness, no, June.” Linda waved a hand at me. “If you’re comfortable enough, full nudity is acceptable even inside the village after dinner tonight.”
I choked on my food. Hannah moved to get me a glass of water. “I didn’t mean that! I meant, do I have to use the robe or can I go in my normal clothes?”
Bruce came into the room, finishing the last button by the collar of his shirt. “You’ll want the robe. You’ll rip your other clothes if you wear them. Especially in your first shift attempt.”
I sighed, resigning myself to the robe on the chair.
“Take the robe for now and you can decide later,” Linda said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all up to you, of course, but the wolves here really won’t be looking at your body. We’re all going to be too excited for the moonrise.”
“About nine or nine thirty this time,” Bruce said. “But you’ll start feeling it at dinner.”
“You might feel it before that,” Linda said. “Just be ready to meet your wolf and don’t resist her.”
“So, what can I expect?” This was the question everyone had avoided answering all week.
“Let’s start with the in-between. What did you picture a werewolf was before you knew we were real?”
“A hairy out-of-control wolf-man in tattered jeans, I guess. The stuff from movies mostly.”
Linda nodded. “There’s a reason those rumors started, that’s the in-between of the first shift. Or at least, one possibility if you start shifting and lose control.”
My heart nearly stopped. “Are you kidding me?”
“It’s less common.” Linda put her hands up in front of her. “But it’s not out of the question, so I’m giving you fair warning. But that’s what the pack is for, there will be a volunteer crew hanging around to intercept anyone who loses control their first shift.”
“What is the shift itself like?”
Linda sighed, exchanging looks with Bruce. “It hurts,” he admitted.
“I won’t lie to you. Your body will grow a new set of everything. Old skin will peel away, making room for new skin that will shift to fur easier from now on. Bones will rearrange, that sort of thing. It’s an important process, but the first time is far from comfortable.”
My head was reeling, trying to picture it. Trying to find something else that contorted the body to compare it to. “It sounds harder than giving birth.”
Linda shrugged, not denying it. “I know it sounds scary, and difficult, and in many ways it is. But if you get out there and trust your wolf, listen to her, you’ll be just fine.”
“You will,” Hannah chimed in. “I swear it’s not as scary after you start, it just hurts. But your wolf! Aren’t you excited to feel her?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “What if I panic, or resist?”
“Don’t,” Bruce offered. “Let it happen. Be kind to your wolf, don’t push her away. Remember, she’s going through this for the first time too.”
Now that was something I hadn’t considered. Everyone spoke about these inner wolves as though they were a separate thing, and maybe they were. Maybe I couldn’t possibly understand it until it happened to me. At least now I wasn’t going in blind, whatever may come. I scraped the last of my oatmeal from the bottom of my bowl and scooped it into my mouth. I scooted my chair out and rinsed my dishes in the sink.
“Feel free to roam the village today as you begin to feel your wolf come out,” Linda said as I made my way out of the kitchen. “All the trackers and any wolves that don’t keep to the village much will be coming in today, so you might see new faces.”
I grabbed the robe and went upstairs to dump it on my bed. Maybe I really would wear it, who knew. From what I gathered, I’d be focused on a lot more than just my modesty tonight.
The village was full of energy today. Children played at full speed, feeling the moon even though they wouldn’t shift tonight. The teenagers who weren’t shifting would be watching the little ones while their parents took part in the run, which wasn’t optional. Some kids would gather at one of the larger houses in town to play games until they fell asleep too. Parents with a newborn walked down the main street, showering her with kisses as they stopped to talk to the other wolves who were outside. It felt more like a true pack today than it had even at the picnic gathering.
I took a deep breath and stretched my legs. I felt like running. Like, for real running. Could I do it or would my leg just fail me again? Knowing what was coming tonight, I didn’t have the guts to try. Instead, I fast walked, heading from the village toward the training field. If the wolves in town were this hyped up, I could only imagine what the more aggressive ones were doing down there.
But what started as a casual walk ended abruptly as something small, yet alarming, crossed my path.
I screamed as a hideous . . . British Bulldog? . . . crossed my path. It drooled some orange substance that looked like it was burning the ground it fell on. The thing was red, and had two stubby little tails and spikes all over its body.
It caught a grasshopper in its mouth, but the thing popped and burst into flames.
“Ferdinand!” Jerod ran over, scolding the . . . dog. “I told you not to catch them, just find them.”
“What is that thing?” I asked, backing away.
Jerod’s innocent smile turned into a wide grin. “You can see him? Don’t worry, he’s as harmless as a kitten.”
Ferdinand burped up a little fire, a molten string of spittle sinking slowly from his mouth to the ground.
“Mostly, anyway. He’s a demon dog, and my familiar,” Jerod explained.
