Authors: Gwen Campbell
Cutler nodded. “You know Nath’s always complaining about newbies
showing up without the right clothes. Somebody always needs more socks or an
extra sweater.” He looked down at Fina curiously. “How do you know about this
stuff?”
She shot him a look then returned to her research on the
profit margins and availability of angora yarn. “Please. Startup companies and
looking for fresh opportunities are required projects in every applied business
course. Besides, I grew up on this stuff. My father had the keenest eye for
business of anyone I ever knew.” Her fingers faltered on the keys. “I miss him,”
she added quietly.
Cutler kissed her head and wrapped his arms around her
shoulders. “What was he like?”
“Smart. No, not smart, brilliant. Focused. Stubborn, bossy
and demanding.” She laid her cheek on Cutler’s forearm and sighed. “I was his
baby girl and he loved me like crazy.”
When a tear landed on his arm, Cutler ran his thumb gently
over her eyelids.
They stayed like that for a while.
“Hey, Cutler.” Ryan raced into the room. “I put my plate in
the dishwasher. Can we go over to Mr. Pike’s and ride the horses now?”
Cutler pressed a kiss to Fina’s hair and straightened. “You
bet, buddy. Dorothea said she baked a pie today and we can have some for
dessert after.”
“
Yesss.
” Ryan pumped his fist in the air. “Oh hey
Fina…Koby’s mom took him shopping for school clothes. Am I gonna go to school
here too? I’m going into grade one, you know.”
She forced a smile, waved him over and tucked his t-shirt
into his shorts. “I know,” she enthused. “How about I make an appointment for
us to visit the school? You can check out your classroom and meet your teacher.”
“Okay. Yeah,” Ryan said, then pushed her hands away and
headed for the door. “Come
on
,” he groaned and rolled his eyes. “Daylight’s
wastin’.”
Cutler and Fina shared a look then obediently marched out in
Ryan’s wake.
“Whatcha doin’, Fina?” Ryan ran into the Pikes’ living room.
He launched himself at the sofa and got up on his knees beside Fina, staring at
her hands.
“I am looking at yarn,” Fina explained. She grinned at the
six year old then up at Cutler and Dorothea Pike’s husband as they entered.
Even though they smelled of horse, both Ryan’s and Cutler’s face, neck and
hands were freshly washed. “Thank you for bringing him back clean.”
“No problem.” Cutler nodded. “I didn’t know you could knit.”
“I can’t. Dorothea, however, is a master at it. I was just
asking her how many women in the pack were good enough to produce items of
saleable quality and what sort of production we could expect.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up.
“Local, handworked goods, made with the finest materials
available—the hair from organically raised mohair goats and angora rabbits.”
She held up one of the balls of yarn. “Come Christmas we won’t be able to keep
up with the orders.”
“That optimistic, are you?” Dorothea’s husband, Gil, asked.
He headed for the kitchen at the other end of the long room, lifted the cover
off a raspberry pie and grabbed a container of vanilla ice cream out of the
freezer.
“Yes,” Fina answered firmly. “It’s a natural tie-in, given
Green Mountain Eco Tours’ mandate. Minimal initial investment, considering the
raw materials are walking around and eating hay in fields all over the county.”
She moved her hand in a vague circle. “And a skilled workforce that won’t see
the work as work. It’s a win-win proposition.”
“Your mate here would make a fine business manager, Cutler.”
Gil licked a smear of raspberry off his knuckle and continued sliding slices of
pie onto plates. “She’s got a better head for it than you. No offense.”
“None taken,” Cutler acknowledged absently. “She does, doesn’t
she?”
Ryan jumped into the conversation. “My Mom likes to knit.
She made me a sweater for the first day of school
and
Christmas. Fina do
you think she’d…”
One by one the adults in the room looked away from Ryan,
hiding pained, cautious expressions. He moved to the end of the sofa and his
expression became strangely blank. Producing a small, electronic game from his
pants pocket, he pressed buttons with one hand while he stuck the thumb from
his other in his mouth.
Later that evening, while Cutler was listening to Ryan read
before bedtime, Fina sat in the office in front of her laptop. Her finger moved
over the screen slowly. It was the first time she’d logged on to the Whitesage
Nursery intranet since her pack had been murdered. She was bringing up customer
lists. It was time to broadcast that Whitesage Nursery was going out of
business. Talking with Dorothea Pike today and making plans for Ryan to go to
school had made her realize she was putting down roots here. They were baby
steps of course, and nothing that couldn’t be reversed. That made her feel a
little better, like she still had an out—if she wanted. Despite that, she was
starting to think of this place—this pack and this community—as hers. It wasn’t
much and she was still a fraud for making them think she was vested but it was
something.
She came across Samantha Wells’ files and smiled, picturing
the fifty-something woman’s puffy gray-blonde hair and the way she’d talk more
with her hands than her mouth. A perpetual ball of fire in motion, Samantha had
been her father’s sales and marketing manager. Fina had learned a lot from her.
Impatiently, she wiped her eyes, blinked and opened a document Samantha had
labeled Pack Contacts. She scrolled down the list. More tears welled in her
eyes. The list read like an obituary for her pack and, mentally, she repeated
the word “dead” after each name. That was, until she came to one she barely
recognized.
Owen Wells. Fina blinked.
It had been so long ago she’d forgotten Samantha had had a
son. Fina had been eight when Owen had challenged her father for leadership of
their pack. He’d been eighteen at the time, tall, muscular but still no
challenge for a powerful Alpha in his prime. She remembered hearing the adults
talk about it, how Owen had lost the challenge then left. He’d be thirty now.
His address was an American military installation in Iraq. Fina wondered if he
knew the pack was dead but doubted it. He would have attempted to contact
her…someone…through the website. She laid her fingers on the keyboard and
started composing an email.
“I
told
you I did!”
Her head snapped up when Ryan’s strident voice echoed
through the house, high-pitched and ringing with indignation. She was already
halfway down the hallway when Ryan yelled again.
“You’re not my father.”
By the time she rushed into his bedroom Ryan was standing in
the middle of his bed, red-faced and shaking. He glared at Cutler, who was
standing a few feet away, staring back at the six year old with his arms
crossed over his chest and his back unnaturally straight.
“He never believes me,” Ryan wailed, pointing an accusing
finger at Cutler. His hand shook. “I brush my teeth every night like I’m
supposed to and he never believes me.”
“Ryan…” Fina walked toward him, holding out her hands.
“You don’t believe me either,” Ryan screamed and started
flailing his fists, aiming for her face.
“
Enough,
” Cutler bellowed. He rushed at the boy,
picked Ryan up and pressed his back into the wall behind his bed. He held him
there by laying one massive hand over Ryan’s chest. When Cutler roared, Ryan
whimpered and fell silent. “Men don’t hit women,” Cutler said slowly and
ominously. “The men of my pack take care of our women. We don’t accuse them of
things that aren’t true.” He snarled, once, then fell silent like he was
waiting for Ryan to compose himself before responding. “Now,” he said after a
moment, and his voice was quiet but no less authoritative. “Can you talk to us
politely?”
Ryan nodded.
“All right then.” Cutler removed his hand, slowly picked
Ryan up beneath the arms and stood him up in the middle of the bed. “I should
have had this talk with you before but I’m going to have it now. Fina is my
mate. Do you understand what that means?”
Ryan hesitated then nodded. “It’s like you’re married.”
“Right. And we
will
get married. Soon. Right now Fina’s
still very sad that her family, her old pack, is dead. I guess you’re sad too.”
Ryan looked away. He looked everywhere except directly at Cutler.
The heat rose in Fina’s face as she stared at the back of
Cutler’s head. “
Pompous, presumptive ass,
” she thought.
“You’re going to be sad for a while. Sad
and
angry.
Sometimes you’re going to make believe your parents are still alive.” Cutler
glanced over his shoulder. “Fina’ll do the same thing,” he added then returned
his focus to Ryan. “All those things will happen but you cannot lash out at her
like that.”
“B-because men don’t hit women.”
Nodding, Cutler pulled up the hem of his shirt and wiped Ryan’s
face with it. “That’s right. You’re part of my pack. I love you and I love
Fina. Nath loves both of you too.”
Ryan’s mouth twitched. “Nath is her mate too,” he added
slowly.
“He is. Koby’s mom has one mate. Your mother had one mate.
Fina’s different. Her heart is so big and strong she’s got room in it for all
of us.”
Ryan seemed to accept Cutler’s explanation and his thin
shoulders went down. He held him arms out and Cutler helped him down off the
bed.
“Come on, buddy. I’ll get you a drink of water then get you
tucked in.” He held Ryan’s hand as he led him into the bathroom.
Almost half an hour later, Cutler tracked her down in the
office. She’d picked up on their muffled conversation—Cutler’s rumbling
baritone and Ryan’s quiet, higher-pitched murmurs—but hadn’t listened close
enough to hear what they were saying.
“Look at this. Please,” she said when he walked in the room.
Cutler’s brow furrowed as he scanned the email. “Owen Wells.
He’s—?”
“Other than Ryan and I, the only surviving member of our pack.
He left when I was young and never came back. I’d forgotten he existed.”
“I’m sorry you have to be the one to tell him.” He rubbed
her shoulders gently and watched as she hit the send button. “Wanna put a movie
on?”
“No. I think I’ll work some more.”
Cutler kissed her head. “You don’t have to think when you
work,” he said, and gave her shoulders a final squeeze and headed out of the
room. “Sometimes it’s good to take a rest from your head, honey.”
Fina heard the television turn on then tuned it out. She
didn’t expect a reply anytime soon from Owen. Soldiers were busy, right?
An hour later she was merging a customer contact list when
her computer chirped an incoming message alert. It was from a personal but
generic military address. Fina opened it immediately.
“Are you safe?”
She blinked as she reread the three stark words. Her reply
was less stilted and flowed easier than her first message. Typing as fast as
she could, she told Owen that she and Ryan had been taken in by a large pack in
Wyoming. They were making a place for themselves and were well provided for.
She hit send.
A reply came back in minutes. It was an invitation to join
him in a live chat. As soon as she agreed the little light beside the webcam
built into her laptop screen lit up.
“You really look like him.”
Fina’s fingers hesitated on the keys. Owen Wells wasn’t what
she expected. He still looked big, even bigger than he had at eighteen, and his
face was all hard edges and stark intensity. He was terrifyingly handsome
because of it. There was a crease between his eyes that looked like it had
become permanent. His dark-blond hair was cut very short. He had the same nose
as Ryan, which caught her off-guard. She’d forgotten they were second cousins.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to
take care of you and Ryan. Are you sure you’re okay?”
She smiled and watched his big hand move over the screen
like he was tracing the outline of her cheek. Without thinking, she tipped her
head into his imaginary hand.
“I’m sorry I forgot about you.”
“You were just a little kid. I can petition for
compassionate leave. Be stateside maybe day after tomorrow.”
It took her a moment to think through her reply.
“If
it’ll help you, come.”
His image on the screen smiled quirkily as he read her post.
“So you’re saying you don’t need me.”
“Men…always fishing,”
she teased then glanced
guiltily over her shoulder before hitting send.
“Funny. Give me time to absorb this. Computer time here
is limited and there’s a line-up of guys behind me. It’s oh-five-thirty here. I
can log back on in a couple of hours when everybody’s at chow.”
He touched the screen once more then logged off.
By the time Cutler switched off the game, Fina was again
engrossed in an online chat with Staff-Sergeant Owen Wells. Cutler leaned over
her, kissed her forehead and left her to mourn with this pack mate she didn’t
know anything about while he ambled off to bed.
“Have you met Wally’s parents?” Cutler cut up the breakfast
sausage on Ryan’s plate, poured him some juice then drizzled maple syrup over a
toaster waffle. Officer Wally Pierce’s parents would be watching over the cubs
tonight during the pack’s mating run.
Ryan shook his head. Holding his utensils upright, his small
body humming with impatience, he watched Cutler with a suspicious eye. Cutler
suppressed a grin, amused by Ryan’s hypervigilance, even though Cutler had yet
to mess up his breakfast and always added enough syrup.
Ryan nodded his thanks when Fina added some hunks of melon
to his plate.
“Wally’s mother is fun like Wally is,” Cutler said. “She
said she’d make mini pizzas for bedtime snacks and you could roast marshmallows
outside over a fire.”
Closing his mouth around a forkful of waffle, Ryan raised
his eyebrows, clearly pleased. Anybody who fed him pizza was all right in his
book. He looked down and focused on his breakfast.
“Nath’ll be back before noon?” Cutler asked Fina when she
topped up his coffee cup then hers.
“Yes.” She toyed with the food on her plate and stopped only
when Cutler laid his hand over hers.
“We don’t have to go,” he offered and his thumb moved over
her fingers. “We can skip this one,” he added with a nonchalant shrug.
Fina knew his indifference was feigned. She knew he and Nath
were anxious to publicly display their claim on her. She knew they wanted her
to take on her rivals in wolf form—dominate them like she’d dominated them in
human form. Cutler especially tried not to show it but they’d been impatient to
have her fully demonstrate her right to be the pack’s top bitch. Until she did
the undercurrent of tension in his pack wouldn’t go away. Every wolf needed one
thing—an established hierarchy.
“You never said anything,” he said quietly. He glanced at
Ryan, making sure he wasn’t paying attention. “But Nath and I, we always figured
you were…forced in wolf form.”
She stiffened then nodded jerkily. “I’m not saying my wolf
won’t have issues.” Despite the anxiety clouding her eyes the corner of her
mouth twitched up in a halfhearted grin. “It’s definitely got some issues. But
I need to do this. I need to try. Just don’t expect a really
good
time.”
Chuckling, Cutler leaned across the table, kissed her then
picked up his fork and started devouring his breakfast.
Before sundown that evening, Cutler knocked on the front
door of Wally’s parents’ house. Wally’s father greeted them warmly and, once
they were inside, Cutler stood on one side of Ryan. Fina stood on the other.
Nath stood a step behind, his hands resting on Ryan’s shoulders. The adults in
the room took a moment to take in the positioning of their bodies, their
closeness, and sniff the air around them. After that they came forward in ones
and twos. Their greetings weren’t fawning but they were overtly polite and
respectful. Children came up to them too. Those old enough to understand that
Cutler was Alpha greeted him with a touch on his leg or arm, depending on how
tall they were. They nuzzled him with unfeigned pleasure, deferring and
affirming with the same gesture. Then they turned to Nathaniel. They nuzzled
and touched him as well but their smiles were wider, their laughter louder when
he grinned, told jokes, asked what they’d been up to.
After a few minutes Ryan was pulled away from his
surrogates, enticed by the movement of small bodies like his, by the giggling
and wrestling match going on in the corner of the Pierces’ living room. Fina’s
eye never strayed from him, although she was friendly and greeted the men and
women who spoke to her. The children who were the same size as Ryan played with
him enthusiastically but let him lead the games like they were obeying some
instinct they were barely aware of. Koby stuck especially close to him, looping
his thin arm around Ryan’s equally thin shoulders in a fine display of
bonhomie
,
demonstrating their friendship. The larger children stuck to their own games
but gave Ryan space. Gave way to his group when they tumbled past. The smaller
children were excited but noticeably sleepier than the others. Mostly they
watched an animated movie or clustered around a cardboard box that had once housed
a refrigerator. Now it had windows cut out of it and crayon drawings to make it
look like a fort. When they did check out what was going on around them, they
also looked to see what Ryan was doing, where he was.
Fina’s shoulders squared. She could live with being a cheat
and a fraud if it meant Ryan didn’t have to spend his youth cowering like a
whipped dog and deferring to everyone else.
After she thanked the Pierces for looking after the children
for the evening, she led her mates out of the house. Most of the other adults
followed, got into their individual vehicles and drove off in the wake of
Cutler’s oversized personal SUV.
“I love your ass.” Nath nuzzled the back of Fina’s ear,
swept his palm over her rear so quickly and nonchalantly she wasn’t sure anyone
around them noticed then grinned like a naughty schoolboy as he unbuttoned his
jeans.
“Hmm. Mighty fine,” Cutler murmured in agreement. He glanced
down at her body as he folded up his shirt. “Grade A. Choice cut.”
“Are we going to have sex or pass the steak sauce?” she
huffed and slapped away Nath’s hands when he reached for the zipper holding her
pants up.
“Just saying.” Cutler grinned, buried his face in her hair,
inhaled with open pleasure and smiled until he felt his eyes widen beneath the
rising moon.
There was no full moon tonight. They were reserved for pack
runs. This was a smaller gathering. Younger wolves mostly, more singles than
mated couples. As he and his pack stripped, Cutler scented the air. Four of the
women in the clearing were in heat. He smiled. Come spring there would be four
new cubs in his pack. More if some of the births were multiples. His pack was
strong, vital and growing.
He watched his old friend Eddie Robertson hover around his
wife. They were standing a little apart from the others. Cutler smiled. Jane
Robertson was one of the women in heat. No wonder her husband was staying
close, touching her, keeping a watchful eye on the other males. Jane stood near
her husband and pressed her breasts into his body. Still grinning, Cutler
looked away. If everything worked out this would be Eddie and Jane’s second
cub.
He and Eddie had gone to school together and once a day, if
he could, Cutler walked the block and a half from the station house to Eddie’s
bakery for one of the man’s apple fritters. “
Ambrosia,
” he thought as he
licked his lips unconsciously. Someday he and Nath would be hovering around
Fina just like that, gravitating to her fertility, orbiting her like planets
around the sun.
“That lecherous look on your face better be for me,” Fina
growled and dragged her fingernails across his naked abdomen.
Cutler hissed then growled in response. “Always.” He bent
and ran his teeth over her shoulder. “Well, you and Eddie Robertson’s apple
fritters.” When her eyes narrowed, he held up his hands defensively. “What? Do
you want me to lie?”
Laughing, Fina smacked his belly then leaned into his
warmth. He wrapped his arms around her, held her tight and gently rocked back
and forth.
She sighed when Nath leaned his naked chest into her back
and laid his head on hers.
After a moment they straightened and removed the rest of
their clothing.
Bending to her, Cutler closed his mouth over one of her
nipples. The cool night air had hardened it and his mouth felt especially good.
Nath moved behind her, brushed her hair aside so he could kiss her neck and
reached around her so he could hold her other breast and gently comb the curls
on her mound with his free hand. She reached up and clasped her hands behind
Nath’s neck, arching a little and pressing her breast into Cutler’s face. He
made a low sound of contentment as his tongue circled her nipple.
Fina scented the air and opened her eyes. Single females—not
a lot of them but enough—were circling them slowly. The females gave them a
wide berth to be sure but hovered nonetheless, giving off hostile vibes in
contrast to the single males trailing after them. The males were focused on the
circling females almost to the exclusion of everything else, oblivious to the
sway of their hard cocks as they walked. The females looked at her coldly but
glanced away when her eyes met theirs.
Finally Cutler squeezed her breast, kissed it one more time
then straightened. His hard cock twitched against her bare abdomen. The muscles
in his face contorted and when he called out his voice was guttural, half man
and half animal.
“Let the run begin,” he bellowed. He howled at the quarter
moon then dropped down on his hands and knees.
Fina watched as fine, dark hairs slithered out of his skin,
covering him completely. His legs shortened, his neck elongated. Dark, vicious
claws replaced his trimmed fingernails. He trembled with pain for just an
instant as his face grew long, his head flattened and pulled back. A wet,
midnight black snout replaced his sculpted nose and he pressed the fleshy end
of it into her mound, sniffed her then growled with pleasure. He butted her
once and Fina sensed the impatience in him before he sniffed her again.
She and Nath dropped to their knees at the same time. By the
time their hands reached the ground their palms had shortened into tough, thick
pads and fur had grown between their toes. The discerning hide of their feet
brushed over lush grasses, dark earth and small stones, noting the different
textures with ease. She shook and her skin trembled in response. It was thicker
now. Tougher. Her reddish-brown fur fluffed when a light breeze stirred it,
communicating the direction of the wind and its speed. Her skin registered the
temperature. She ran her snout over the muzzle of the massive brown wolf
standing in front of her. The other brown wolf, almost as large and almost as
heavily muscled, held its nose out patiently and nuzzled her when she finished
greeting its brother.
For a moment Fina’s wolf let itself relax, taking in this
feeling of belonging, being wanted, cherished. She was theirs. They were hers.
When the moment was over she lifted her head and scanned the
clearing. Three bitches in particular were watching her. One was small and
sleek with a shimmering silver coat. Six salivating males trailed after her.
Fina’s wolf sensed acceptance from her, perhaps even friendship. She watched
Fina but her bright blue eyes picked out the other two bitches, conveying their
positions to Fina.
The second bitch was large for a female with a fox red coat
and long legs. The third was black and she lifted her lips and exposed her
sharp teeth in open challenge. Yet it was the red bitch who closed in on Fina
first.
Fina stepped away from the brown males, who growled and
moved their bodies to cut off her escape. Her snarl froze them in place and she
walked into the middle of the clearing. It emptied quickly. She held her tail
high, her shoulders low and turned toward the red bitch. The red bitch charged
her, bared her teeth, snarled. Fina’s back end jumped, spinning her fast and
effortlessly. She dipped her head, got in a nip at the other wolf’s belly as
she hurtled past, then dropped her shoulders again as she waited for the next
charge. The red bitch yelped but didn’t falter. She came back at Fina, faster
than before, leading with her shoulder rather than her head so her momentum
wouldn’t carry her off course this time. Fina dug her feet in and sprinted
forward, catching the other wolf’s shoulder with hers, knocking her to the
ground. As soon as she fell Fina leaped on her, bit down on her neck then
released her just as quickly. She trotted away with deliberate arrogance,
circled back and stood ready for a third charge. Fina’s wolf tasted the red
bitch’s fur, her skin, a drop of her blood. She bared her teeth, exposing the
proof of her victorious strike, and waited.
The red bitch got up quickly, faced Fina but didn’t move.
She seemed to be considering her next attack, reassessing the large, new,
reddish-brown bitch who had mated with their Alpha and his Beta. Her blue eyes
glared at Fina and she breathed fast. Without warning and perhaps motivated by
desperation rather than relying on skill or finesse, she hurled herself at
Fina. Saliva trailed over her cheeks as her jaws snapped. Fina charged. Ducking
her head, she lined her heavy skull up with her powerful spine and plowed into
the red bitch’s chest. She was taller than Fina, her center of gravity higher
but she wasn’t as strong…or as motivated. The red bitch yelped, flipped, fell
hard on her shoulder and yelped again. Before the sound was fully formed Fina
was on her, spraying spittle over the fine, bright pelt and sinking her teeth
into the other’s neck.
Blood. Fina’s wolf tasted blood. She snarled with savage
triumph. There was not so much blood that the other bitch wouldn’t recover and
recover quickly but enough to tell Fina that any more pressure from her
powerful jaws would drive her canines past the thin network of capillaries
beneath her opponent’s skin into the arteries below. The bitch froze and so did
Fina. A part of her understood this one had value in their pack. She was young,
strong…an unmated, breeding-age female. She might have wanted Fina’s mates,
might have wanted the status and position Fina now held but even though she
wasn’t strong enough to claim them, she should not die for trying.
Trying was good. It ensured that only the strongest female
ruled. That her worth and position were established in the eyes of the pack. It
affirmed the hierarchy.
When the red bitch began to whine piteously Fina released
her, growled once then stood her ground when her opponent ducked her head
submissively and ran off. Fina scanned the clearing with unnatural alertness.