“What was it like, those five years in the wild?” I asked her.
“Beautiful.”
“What made you change back?”
For a long time, she just stared into the distance and didn’t answer. When she finally looked back at me, a voice outside interrupted her.
“Dreama! I need to talk to you!”
Oh Jesus. Charlie?
Slate pricked to attention. “The one with the flowers?”
I nodded, and she moved to the bedroom. She kept herself out of sight from the door, but still in my vision.
“Charlie, you really don’t want to mess with me. I meant what I said. Get lost.”
“No! I don’t care what you are, I love you. Please let me in so we can talk.”
I was so not going to do that. Instead, I shot a look back at Slate. She nodded and disappeared. I heard the bedroom window slide open.
I took a deep breath, made sure the chain was on the door, and opened it just a sliver. Charlie wasn’t having a good day. He was disheveled and looked like he’d been in a fistfight or two. His hands and face were dirty, and he wore a hooded jacket twice his size despite the heat.
“I was waiting for you, but that tall woman came by, so I hid.”
“Charlie, you’re ill. You don’t love me. You can’t. We barely know each other. Now go before I call the cops.”
His face twisted into a petulant sneer. “You mean your boyfriend.”
He sounded like a little brother who’d just discovered my diary. I wanted to deck him.
“What the fuck, Charlie? I thought we had this settled.”
He looked around and shifted in his hoodie. “Can we talk somewhere else?”
“I’m not going anywhere alone with you. I don’t trust you.”
I saw something move in the corner of my eye. Slate was watching. It made me feel a little better.
“Whatever you need to say to me, say it right here. Then go.”
He reached into his jacket. In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. He pulled out just enough for me to see a flash of metal and his finger on the trigger of a gun. His whole hand shook.
“We need to talk,” he said, “Alone.”
I don’t know if it was false bravado, annoyance, or the fact that I’d killed something not much smaller than him with my teeth. Whatever the reason, I stood my ground.
“No, Charlie. Not now, not ever.”
I heard a car door close in the parking lot. Keys jangling. Someone was coming.
“Last chance, Charlie. I’m never going to be what you want.”
He shook his head. “Then I’ll make it so he can’t have you either.”
Alan walked up just about the time Charlie pointed the gun at me through his jacket. Thank God Alan was still in uniform. He had groceries in his hands.
“Dree, are you in there? Are you okay?”
Slate picked that second to pounce. She was in wolf form, and Charlie screamed as she brought him down. Alan dropped his groceries and pulled out his service pistol.
“Back away from the door, Dree!” he screamed.
“No, wait! Alan, don’t shoot!”
Too late. Two bangs close together, followed by an anguished whimper. Slate fled toward the woods. I slammed the door and pulled off the chain, then threw it open again. Alan was still there, holding his gun. Charlie had fled for the woods as well, in the opposite direction of Slate.
“GodDAMN it, Alan! I said don’t shoot!”
He was frozen in place, and obviously confused. “But…he was being attacked!”
I screamed with rage and headed into the woods. He called to me as I left, but I wasn’t listening. I think he said, “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
24
I smelled blood both directions. Slate or Charlie? Charlie out there alone with a gun was more of an immediate threat, but Slate was my friend. I couldn’t leave her when she’d been shot.
My wolf decided for me. Without another thought, I stripped down and dropped to all fours. I couldn’t concentrate on Alan to change. Instead, I thought of the man outside the club. Rage filled me, and I began to change. I shuddered, snapped and popped into my wolf form, and stuck my muzzle toward the nearest blood drop.
I ran in the direction Charlie had gone. He must not have been injured that badly because he was already out of sight. The trees glowed orange in the near-dusk sunlight. I picked up the scent of Charlie’s blood leading into the woods.
I ran as fast as my powerful legs would carry me, dodging trees and small creatures along the way. My human mind lay dormant. I was hunting. Find the one who tried to hurt us. Find the one who caused our Alpha harm. Find him, and kill him.
Charlie moved clumsily, not trying to hide his tracks. He had shed the jacket next to a tree, but when I padded on and around it, I didn’t feel the gun.
I found him hiding behind a stone bench just off the paved hiking trail. I moved in closer. I could see him clearly, holed up against one side and breathing heavily. He clutched the gun like it was his last friend in the world. Perhaps it was.
As I approached, creeping silently closer, I smelled more blood on him. It wasn’t just a scratch after all. In the rapidly dimming sunlight, I saw a dark smear across both arms. Alpha had done that.
I sniffed the air. There was more blood on him than just those smears. He shifted a bit and I saw him clutching one side of his stomach. There was a hole in his shirt. Dumb bastard must have shot himself when Slate tackled him.
I stalked around to the opposite side of the bench so he wouldn’t see me approach. I moved with the wind and the underbrush to hide my sounds. I was a few feet from the bench when a squirrel rushed down a nearby tree. Charlie whipped around to see what it was, moving his gun with it.
I pounced.
My initial bite sank my teeth into his gun hand and I damn near snapped it off. He dropped the weapon and scrambled to get up. I landed on him, pinning him down and snapping my jaws at his face. He did everything he could not to face me. I heard panicked mewling sounds from his throat and smelled urine.
I paused. He was subdued. I could just let this be a scare and let him go. If he was stupid enough to let this happen and come back for more, I could sic Alan on him.
But what if he came back packing heat while Alan wasn't there? In public, maybe, where I couldn’t easily change and defend myself?
My wolf saw no dilemma. This was the one who wanted to hurt us. The one Alpha protected us from. Alpha was hurt while protecting us. I should kill him. I could eat well. He was much bigger than a rabbit.
I shook my muzzle to clear my mind. Charlie started crying, a high keening noise. I stared down my nose at him. He was pathetic. Would he have really killed me?
My ears pricked up at the sound of someone coming. His steps were as loud as an oncoming car. He screamed a name into the falling night. “Dree! Dreama! Where are you?”
Dree?
Oh, Dree was me. Part of me. Wolf-Dree sensed danger from the one coming now. He was the one who had hurt Alpha. He would hurt us too, in this form. We needed to kill and run.
While my human side was distracted, Charlie was busy listening. He started to scream, “Over here! Help! Ple-”
The last bit was cut off as I placed my teeth on either side of his throat. He swallowed hard and said nothing else.
“Hello?” Alan called back, “Who’s there? I’m a cop, I’m going to come help you.”
Damn it. He drew closer, honing in on the sound of Charlie’s voice. I looked down at my prey. He looked back in paralyzed fear until something on his face changed.
“Dree?” he whispered, “Oh my God, is that you? I love you, Dree. We can work with this. I won’t tell anyone. Please.”
Wolf-Dree growled at him, and whatever recognition he saw disappeared. One of our teeth had broken skin. His blood was rich, and the smell was intoxicating. All it would take is a single snap, and I could tear off a juicy piece of flesh.
Alan broke
into the clearing and took a shot. The bullet ricocheted off the stone bench, and Wolf-Dree woke up from its reverie.
Danger! Run! I did. I was much faster than the one who had hurt Alpha. I ran far enough that he would never find me before hunkering down and watching. The one with the gun knelt by our food. He put the gun away, and in a fleeting moment, we wanted to kill him.
I suppressed the thought as best I could. This was Alan. He was not our enemy.
I licked the last of the blood off my jowls, and turned to face a sound from behind me. It was Alpha. She limped and smelled of old blood, but otherwise, she looked fine. I turned and went back to watching the one with the gun.
He stood and spoke into something small on his shoulder. I knew there would be more of them soon. More of them with guns. They would search for us, but they would not find us. Alpha looked at me, and I lowered our muzzle to the ground and looked up at her.
She licked my muzzle and walked deeper into the forest. She was Alpha. I followed.
That night, we slept under the stars. Nothing disturbed us, nuzzled together in the hollow of a dead tree. I had strange dreams of bright lights and cold steel.
25
When I woke, Alpha was gone. Instead, a tall one stood in front of me. I bristled until my muzzle caught her scent. She smelled like Alpha. Part of me recognized this tall one with pinkish-brown skin and no fur.
Slate. This was Slate. I licked her hand when she lowered it.
“Wake up, Dree,” she said, “You’ve never willed it back before, and it’s going to hurt. You need to learn.”
The tall one rubbed her hand from my ears to my back, and my hackles lowered. I wanted to snooze more. It was light. Easier to hunt in the dark. Hide, wait, sleep.
“Dree, it’s time. Come back.”
Slate. Friend. Human.
That did it. I felt myself resurfacing. I tried to visualize my body with hands, feet, no muzzle. My fur receded, but it wouldn’t go away entirely.
“Concentrate, Dree. Close away the wolf. It wants to sleep.”
It did. I imagined ushering the wolf into a room, and I felt my fur receding completely, the hair on my head growing out, and my hands and feet shrinking. My claws withdrew, and the tips of my fingers healed. Ice cold shocks ran through my bones as they reformed. My spine popped and shortened. Each new sensation sent a pulse through my now bare back, where I felt the tattoos reform.
Slate sat cross-legged in the grass and stroked my hair as the change completed. The previous evening pressed down on me, and I began to cry. I’d nearly eaten Charlie. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He had tried to kill me, after all. But ripping out his throat? I could still taste his blood.
And then there was Alan. Who knew what he was thinking. He'd probably called in half the local precinct to search for me.
What if he knew?
I dismissed that entirely. He couldn’t. Things like this don’t happen. Not really. Surely he was thinking I’d been spooked and ran, and that I’d turn up.
But PJ was probably looking for me too. She might have come by my apartment and found it unlocked or worse yet, taped off by the police. What would she think? I had abandoned her. Her grandfather tried to kill me. I was a monster. A freak. What was Slate’s word?
Abomination.
Slate rocked me back and forth. She leaned down and spoke quietly into my ear. “Are you ready to stop him? To keep this from happening to another woman? ”
I looked up at her. She wasn’t as tough as she made herself out to be. She had hardened herself over the years, yes, but I saw glimpses of what she once was. Had she been someone’s wife? Girlfriend?
“I’m ready, Slate. Alpha.”
She smiled at me, and I added, “Sister.”
26
We snuck through the forest for most of the morning. I felt awkward and exposed in human form. Slate, of course, practically projected self-confidence. She strode gracefully through the forest as if she were in a nude ballet. At least it wasn’t hard for me to stay quiet in bare feet. I had to make a mental effort not to try and cover myself constantly.
We eventually made it to a deserted parking lot. It was odd to think Slate had a car. I guess I’d always just assumed she ran everywhere. Her perfectly normal silver sedan was parked alone next to a golf course on the edge of the woods. She reached under the car and pulled out a magnetic key box.
With one more careful glance around the lot to make sure we were alone, she popped the trunk. Inside were several sets of clothing, all easy to pull on and off. It was mostly a collection of track suits and an array of cheap sandals. She pulled out two pairs of pants and two tops, handing me one set. We dressed quickly. The suit was a little long in the legs, but otherwise fit me pretty well. I had to wonder if she’d bought it with me in mind.
When we were presentable again, we hopped into the car. It was a manual transmission. Somehow that fit with my image of her. Self-reliant, even in her car.
“You won’t want to go back to your apartment for a while,” she said.
I was fully aware of that, and none too happy about it. I’d left pretty much everything there, and the door and bedroom window were unlocked. I vainly hoped that Alan hadn’t been so distraught at my disappearance that he forgot to go back and lockup.
“We can regroup at my place until nightfall,” Slate said. “Tonight, we end this.”
I nodded. She didn’t say where her place was, but judging from the direction she took, it was somewhere on the northwest side of town, on the other side of the interstate. She drove in silence. I had so many questions I didn’t know where to start, so I picked the most innocent thing that came to mind.
“How old are you, Slate?”
Her mouth turned up a little. “How old do I look?”
I gave her an appraising look. “Maybe thirty?”
Her smile told me I was wrong, but in a good way. She kept her eyes on the road and was constantly scanning all directions. Driving in Houston was every bit as involved as a hunt.
“You will not age as fast now,” she said, “It is one of the few perks of being marked.”
“So you’re saying you’re older than thirty?”
“Much.”
She wasn’t forthcoming, so I didn’t pry.
“I didn’t choose to kill him.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but her eyebrows rose.
“My wolf chose for me,” I said.
“You are not really two separate beings, you know.”
“I—I guess not, but I can cope with it if I can separate the two.”
She nodded. “It will become harder in time.”
That was a sobering thought. What would happen if I wasn’t able to fend off the wolf’s instincts?
“You’re saying I’ll become more wolf, even when I’m human?”
One nod, quick and curt. “Exactly.”
I shivered at the idea, and focused on the strip malls whizzing by on either side of the street.
“I can’t see Alan anymore.”
“No,” Slate said.
“I’ll have to move.”
“Most likely.”
“Can I, maybe, stay with you? Just for a little while?”
She nodded. “Of course. We are pack. You’re always welcome.”
I don’t know why, but that warmed me more than anything in the past few days. It was a level of acceptance I had wanted since our first hunt but never actually expected.
“Thank you,” I said. “I mean it. You’ve made this whole experience a lot less frightening.”
She took a deep breath. “I did not have the benefit of a guide. I don’t wish anyone to have to deal with that like I did.”
We drove on in silence for a while. My stomach settled, and I felt a little better. Slate’s track suit was comfortable. It smelled like her. I found it calming.
“Slate, have you ever met any others like us? I mean, like men?”
“Men that are like us, wolves?”
she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Once.”
I turned to face her, curling one foot under me. “What was it like?”
She took her eyes off the road briefly.
Dreams of Gray Page 8
