“One of our members was a wolver who lived alone. He was an odd sort, and sometimes, like Eli, he would shift and not come home. It began to happen more and more frequently. I didn’t understand it at the time, but some of the members began to worry. The Alpha said everything would be all right. That wolver was turning feral and our Alpha knew it, but he’d known the man since they were cubs and I don’t think he had the heart to put him down. After all, we were isolated. What harm could he do?
“What we didn’t know then, but I learned later, was that the wolver who could do no harm had developed a taste for domestic animals and the ranchers around us were growing angry.
“I had just turned fifteen and earned my right to go over the moon. I was going to be a man, a full-fledged member of the pack. We had a party to celebrate. In our little pack, we celebrated everything. The moon rose, and the Alpha took me over. He brought the women over, too. The seven pups we left behind were safe and sleeping in their beds. After all, we were isolated. What harm could come to them? For the first time, I ran with the pack and I was in my glory.”
Bull stopped and closed his eyes. Tommie slipped her hand in his and waited. He took a deep breath and continued.
“When the shots rang out, my father was the first to go down. All I heard in my head was his voice and the Alpha’s telling me to run. More shots rang out. More wolvers fell. I did as I was told. I ran. I’d never been so frightened in my life. I might have run in circles for all I know. I ran until I collapsed. The moon set and the sun rose and I was still wolf. I think that frightened me almost as much as seeing my father fall. Forgetting that I was supposed to be all manly and mature, I went looking for my mother, not to give her aid, but to seek her comfort.” He sounded ashamed.
“Honey, that’s what mothers are for. You were still a cub.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I made my way back and found blood everywhere. I ran to our cabin. My brother and sister were awake and crying for our mother. It was cold, so cold. The fire was burning low and there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to get my sister to open the door of the stove, but she was too young and didn’t understand. All she wanted was my mother and I wanted her, too. I dragged the covers off the bed and made them sit as close to the stove as they could get. I found what food I could for them, but it wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough. Then I set off to see what had become of my mother.
“I found the pile of bodies first. My father, the Alpha, and the Mate were among them. The rest were pack members and friends. They were piled like so much garbage. It seemed like human men were everywhere. Much later I learned that there were only four. I hid and watched and waited and followed them when they threw the bodies on the truck.
“Not all the wolvers of my pack died that night. Six were captured and caged. My mother was one of them. She was wounded and there was nothing I could do for her. It took her three days to die.”
“Oh, Bull. Oh, Bull, honey, I’m so sorry.” The tears fell softly from Tommie’s eyes, but she didn’t try to wipe them away. “And your brother and sister?” she asked cautiously, “What happened to them?”
“What always happens to the young and the weak when they’re exposed to the cold. I had no way to feed them. I had no way to keep them warm. I promised my mother I would care for them and I let them die.”
“No. No, you didn’t,” she argued. “You did what you could.”
“I was wolf and I couldn’t find my way home. I had no one to show me how. All I could do was bury them. It took me a long time to dig those holes. They were all gone and so was I. For the next two years, I ran as a wolf. I ran wild, just like the wolvers I hunt.”
“No, no, not like the wolvers you hunt. If you were feral, you couldn’t have come back. You couldn’t be the kind of man you are. You couldn’t care so much.”
Tears were trickling from the corners of his eyes and Tommie kissed them away. She could think of nothing more to say but, “I’m sorry.” She had lost her birth parents too as a child, but she had no memory of them, so never felt the pain of their loss as Bull did. Her adoptive parents had died together in a car accident, tragic and heartbreaking, but she was an adult and not the young boy with nowhere to turn.
Bull turned to face her and they lay together much like she and Cora had laid just a short time before. Bull stared into her eyes as he finished.
“Of the thirty-one wolvers in my pack, fourteen were shot and killed, seven pups died of exposure, four wolvers went wild like me, and of the six captured, three died, two died later in captivity. I tracked them all. I left the ones who went wild alone. When I found that one of the captured had escaped, I was so excited. He was the last of my pack. He was what I’d been searching for.” Bull’s sigh was heavy with grief. “Except he wasn’t what I was searching for.
“His years in captivity had changed him. He’d gone mad, the feral wolf in a man’s body. He’d turned killer. The police were tracking him, too. He was the first feral I eliminated.” Bull shrugged and gave her a sad smile. “My Alpha, Eugene Begley was hunting him, too. He found me instead, and here I am.”
“I understand now,” Tommie told him gently. “And I love you even more, William Bulworth.”
“One fucking feral destroyed all those lives,” he whispered.
“Don’t think of the ones that were lost, Bull. Think of the ones you’ve saved. I think your family would be very proud.”
Tommie kissed him then, just as gently as she spoke. She stroked the hair at his temple much as Cora had stroked hers. Something had changed between them. She felt as if she was his lifeline, pulling him from his world of tragic memories and into hers. She felt his wolf calling out and her she-wolf answered the call.
When he rolled to position himself on top of her, she opened to him, ready to give whatever he needed from her body. Slowly, gently, they joined together in the quiet rhythm of love. He didn’t speak. Nor did she. What they were sharing was too deep for words and as they reached their climax together, Tommie heard their wolves howl together in song.
Bull rolled to the side, keeping her with him, and still joined together, they slept.
“Don’t you bare your teeth at me, young lady,” the voice admonishes; a woman’s voice, firm, but not harsh. Her finger wags with the warning. “Bad things happen to little girls who let their beast out. Now, here’s your bankie. Nothing to cry about.” She smiles and blows a kiss.
The nightmare continued as it always did, but continued past its usual and frightening end.
A long tongue licks the little girl’s face. A warm body surrounds her and she feels its comfort and protection. She cries when it leaves her and as human hands carry her away, she calls out for it.
“My woof. My woof. Come back.”
Tommie’s eyes snapped open, but she held her body still until she could identify the source of her sudden wakefulness. She’d been dreaming again and though she had no recollection of this recurrent nightmare, she felt none of the fear that usually accompanied the dream. She settled back down beside the warm body of her man, running her hand lightly over his chest.
Usually agitated by the dream, her wolf must have sensed the difference, too. The she-wolf curled into a contented ball and went back to sleep. Tommie smiled. If your wolf says everything is good, it probably is.
“You okay, baby?” Bull mumbled. He wrapped his arm a little more tightly around her.
“I am,” Tommie whispered. She closed her eyes and returned to sleep with his comfort and protection surrounding her.
Chapter 32
Fifteen minutes after leaving the camp, one of the pups riding in the back seat of Bull’s truck squeaked, “I have to pee.”
Tommie saw Bull’s jaws clench and she laughed. “Don’t say it,” she whispered and then louder. “There’s a rest area five miles ahead. Big Bull will stop so you can use the bathroom. Just hang on, we’ll be there in a minute.”
“Big Bull?” he asked.
Tommie spr
ead her hands. “It’s their name for you, not mine.” She eyed his crotch. “I know better.”
“I’ll show you better.”
“I didn’t know it could get better,” she laughed. “There’s something we need to talk about anyway, and I’d rather not do it while you’re driving.”
Bull put his turn signal on and led their small caravan into the rest area.
“At this rate, it’s going to take us a month to get there,” Bull grumbled after everyone else decided to go, too.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Now, don’t get mad.” She was aware of how touchy men could be about directions, though she did find it odd that a wolver would lose his way. “We’re going the wrong way. My house is south and we’re headed north.”
“We’re not going to your house.”
“Um, yes we are. There’s no danger anymore and that was the plan.”
“Your plan, not mine. You can’t take them to your house. It won’t work, and I won’t let you do it.”
“Won’t let me? I don’t think I need your permission, William Bulworth. And how do you know it won’t work when you haven’t even given it a chance?”
“Because I know them, I know you, and I know your neighbors.”
“My neighbors, I’ll have you know, are very nice people.”
“I know. Nice house, nice neighborhood, nice law abiding neighbors.”
“They won’t steal, Bull. I told you what Cora said. They don’t want to live like that. They just need someone to help them change direction.”
“I didn’t say they would steal, though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few setbacks. You’d be putting them in the center of temptation, and there are other things you haven’t taken into account.”
“Such as?”
“Such as they’re used to living outdoors.”
“They’ll get used to it and I have a very nice backyard,” she argued.
“Yeah, like you’d get used to living in a tent,” he laughed, “And zoos have larger enclosures than your backyard. We’re not going to your house.”
The others were counting on it. They were looking forward to having a permanent home and he was leading them north to what? Another campground, no doubt. One that was colder and dirtier than the last. Bullheaded, that’s what he was. Tommie was still riding the high of their glorious coming together of the night before and he had to go and ruin the mood.
“We’ll just see about that.” She marched across the empty parking lot in what her mother would have called a high royal huff.
“Baby,” Bull called after her.
Tommie ignored him. She was not his baby, no matter how soft he sounded when he said it.
“Spitfire.”
She liked that one, too. It was his first name for her and that made it special, but not special enough to make her turn on her pack. Yes, pack, damn it. With or without an Alpha, they were her pack.
Tommie kept walking.
“You need to hear me out, Tommie,” he called after her. “You’re not walking away from me.”
“You see my ass?” she called over her shoulder. “That means I’m walking away.”
She felt a burst of power wash over her. How dare he? “You can take that huffy-puffy thing, William Bulworth, and shove it up...”
The power swelled a little more. “Tommie, get that skinny ass of yours back here.”
Tommie stopped. She had to, but she refused to turn around. “You liked my skinny ass well enough when you were...”
“Thomas Mortimer Bane, you will not have the last word this time. Get back here. Now!”
The power swelled again and Tommie turned around. She had no choice. Head down, eyes on the ground, she stomped back to him.
“I still like your skinny ass,” he said, “But I’m not going to kiss it every time you don’t get your way. Now look at me and listen.” He released whatever power it was that made her obey.
“You said you should only use the huffy-puffy when it was important,” she grumbled as soon as she could talk.
“This is important.”
And because she knew he really, really meant it, and because he’d use the huffy-puffy thing if she didn’t, she clamped her lips together and listened.
Bull nodded, satisfied. “I’m taking you home...”
“But you just said...” she interrupted and felt a trickle of power wash over her. “Bully,” she muttered before clamping her lips shut again.
“To my home. It’s fairly isolated and there’s plenty of room to run.”
He wanted to take her home! Her sudden excitement was just as suddenly dampened. She wouldn’t leave the others to fend for themselves. She couldn’t.
“Home. Mate. Home.” Her wolf spun in circles, then snarled when she spoke.
“But...”
“I swear to God, spitfire, I’m going to buy you a gag,” Bull muttered, but he didn’t look angry.
Her wolf started prancing again, and feeling outnumbered, Tommie subsided.
“There’s room for all of you. It’s temporary,” he warned. “After what they did last night, I can’t leave them behind. Besides, they’ll probably get caught doing something stupid, like stealing those SUVs because, what the hell, they were already stolen, and the whole damn thing will start all over again.”
Now Tommie’s feet were dancing too. She was bouncing from one foot to the other. Her hands were clenching and unclenching in her need to speak.
Bull started to laugh. “For God’s sake, spitfire, go ahead and let it out.”
“Bull!”
She leapt at him, laughing at his startled shout when she threw her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. He laughed harder when she smothered his face in kisses.
“I love you. I love you. I love you, and now I know why. You’re the most wonderful wolver on earth.” She kissed him again. “I love you.”
Tommie pulled away in sudden concern. Bull had stopped laughing.
“I love you, too,” he said quietly.
And everything she’d felt the night before came back tenfold.
~*~
Tommie got out of the truck and just stared. She looked up at him with her mouth slightly open and then back at the open land and the mountains beyond.
“Finally,” Bull laughed, “I found something that leaves you speechless.” It didn’t, she just needed a moment to catch her breath.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I don’t think I’d ever get tired of looking at that. Wouldn’t you love to own all of it, so you could keep it just the way is?”
“I do own it, or five thousand acres of it, give or take.” He laughed when she looked up at him again. “I’m not kidding. I told you I had room for them to run.”
“Oh, Bull, they’re going to think they’ve died and gone to heaven. I know I do.”
By the looks on their faces, Tommie’s prediction wasn’t far off. Like Tommie, their heads swiveled between the view and him. And the looks on their faces when they looked at him made him feel like a king. It was a moment before he realized that a few of them were crying. Samuel was one of them.
“This is for us? You mean it. You aren’t pulling our legs? This is for us?”
Bull meant to remind him that it was temporary, but what came out was, “For you. This is your home if you want it.”
Then before he could correct it, Tommie was in his arms again, kissing him again, and telling him she loved him. Again. And like the view, he thought he’d never get tired of it.
“This is where I grew up, Tommie, just a few miles down the road. This is the land I ran as a cub. This is the land I ran as a wolf. After my pack was gone, there were no wolvers here. I guess this place was my way of proving that one of us survived.”
“Survived and thrived. Just look around you, Bull. What once was lost, is now found,” she paraphrased the famous hymn. “I think your pack would be pleased.”
Bull smiled at her and looked around at
his ragtag mob of wolvers. After all the years of trying to right the wrong that had been done to his pack, he finally felt like he’d succeeded.
Everyone stood around ooh-ing and ah-ing and smiling until one of the pups said he had to pee. The comment seemed to bring them all back to reality and there was a burst of chatter and plans with Tommie at its center.
They toured the house, all of them following behind him like he was a museum guide.
“I didn’t choose the design,” he told them. “What the realtor called the bunkhouse was already there when I bought the place. The house was only under roof. I lived in the bunk house until I got the place livable and the rest I finished off over time.”
“How much time?” Tommie asked.
“Eighteen years. Every time I came up here I finished off a little more and I came up here every chance I got.” He shrugged. “There’s a lot of down time between jobs, and I didn’t have much else to do. Do you like it?” he asked because that suddenly seemed important.
“The roughhewn beams, the hardwood floors, the tile, and oh, my God, the windows, those huge windows, Bull, they’re beautiful. It’s all beautiful. It’s perfect.”
With Tommie in it, Bull thought it was perfect, too. He looked around at the assembled group and down at her. “I got them here, the rest is yours. You sort out where to put them all, but,” he warned her with a finger to her nose, “the Master bedroom is ours. No rugrats on pallets in the corner. No Sarah and Shorty need the room. Understood?”
She gave him a salute. “Yes, sir. Big bed is ours. No pups under foot. Anything else?” She was bouncing with excitement.
“Yeah, check out the bunkhouse. It’s more like four little apartments, two rooms, bath, and a tiny kitchen in the corner. The guy who owned this place before me was some rich dude from California. I think bunkhouse was somebody’s cutesy name for guest suites. I think it was his wife’s idea and he dumped it to pay for her divorce settlement. Her loss, our gain. I’ll be in the office. I need to make a few phone calls.”
Wolver's Rescue Page 27
