by Lynn Red
"Sergeant!" Wolfe yelled at the nurse while pointing at Akhtar. "Get him out of here!"
The nurse jumped to his feet, grabbing Akhtar roughly and pulling him out of the tent. The doctor just stood there, wide eyed.
Wolfe jerked his hand again, causing a fresh wave of pain to run through the enemy's body. "(Now! Who told you?)"
The man closed his eyes. "(God will protect me, I will tell you nothing.)"
Wolfe knew it was the truth. He angrily let go of the man's leg and stormed out of the tent. Akhtar had a momentary wave of fear fly out of his body, but then smiled confidently.
"Who are you?" Wolfe yelled at Akhtar in English as he grabbed his collar.
Akhtar just spread his hands and shrugged, a smile on his face. Wolfe lifted him up off the ground before realizing that everyone around was watching him. He threw Akhtar on the ground, then stormed off.
***
"Good morning, everyone. Could I get everyone to take a seat for today's security brief?" The young lieutenant waited for the officers and senior enlisted to stagger to their seats. Many carried coffee cups, some carried notebooks, and all looked half asleep. Wolfe wasn't much better off, but he was attentive. After all, many of these men never left the wire. His job more often than not took him to dangerous parts of the area.
The lieutenant went through the basic parts of the local intel. There was a mortar attack on a neighboring base the night before. A roadside bomb hit a civilian convoy. There was chatter about increased attacks during Ramadan, but that was months away.
"That concludes the unclassified portion of this brief, and we'll be starting the top secret intelligence portion of the brief. I'll ask that all uncleared personnel leave the room. I'll be turning it over to Colonel Donato." With that, most of the junior officers and enlisted personnel left the room, including the lieutenant who had spoken up until now. There wasn't always classified intel to give out, but when there was, everyone complied with the orders not to share it.
Colonel Donato stayed in his seat, and the rest of the people in the room shuffled to seats closer to him. "Captain Wolfe," he started immediately.
"Yes, sir," Wolfe responded.
"Your team has been tasked with going to a local village off the beaten path. I can't pronounce this name but you might recognize it," Donato said, sliding a folder over to him.
Wolfe nodded. He did recognize it, a village he had built good relations with in the brief time since he had arrived here. He opened the folder.
"Seems they've been getting pretty friendly with the enemy. I want you go to there and remind them who their friends really are. Roll in with a display of force if you have to."
Wolfe furrowed his brow. He had sensed no deception the last time he had gone there, and the sheikh had welcomed the Americans with open arms. "Sir, where are we getting this intel from?"
"We got this direct from the Afghan National Army. Now, you're to go there and-"
"Who in the ANA?" Wolfe asked, cutting off the colonel.
Donato looked at him as if he was going to reprimand him, then answered the question. "A guy named Actor or something."
Wolfe yelled. "Akhtar? I filed a report on him a couple days ago! Sir, I think he's the one working for the enemy."
Donato looked alarmed, then motioned one of his advisers to him. The man whispered in his ear, and Donato nodded.
"I was unaware of your altercation with the man," he said, speaking to Wolfe again. "As you're aware, there's a lot of operations going on here. Are you going to be able to handle this one, or am I going to have to send your team in without you?"
Wolfe swallowed. Sending his squad in without their commander would be as good as him resigning his commission. "No, sir. I'll go."
"Good. Your SP time is 0900," Donato said. Wolfe recognized the military lingo for Starting Point time. "You'll be escorted by a squad of infantry there and back, but you'll be in command. I want you to roll in with a show of force and remind them who their allies are. Be careful, but don't let your history with this 'Actor' to cloud your judgment. You're dismissed so you can get your squad ready."
"Yes, sir," Wolfe said, annoyed at the dismissal. He stormed back to his tent, rousing his men from their sleep. He couldn't shake the bad feeling he had, though.
***
As the vehicles rolled up, mothers grabbed their children and pulled them inside their mud huts. Wolfe couldn't blame them. They were rolling up in a highly armed military convoy, much bigger than the previous times they had come here.
Wolfe left one of the infantry in each of the driver's seats and gunner's spots of their convoy, realizing that his squad would be nothing but passengers if they needed to get out of there in a hurry. His ten man squad, made up of eight senior enlisted men, a lieutenant, and himself, kept their rifles at the low ready as they made their way to the sheikh's hut.
Wolfe noticed that there weren't any kids outside playing, but even that wasn't too bizarre. There were still men outside, doing their daily activities, and he didn't get any weird smells from them. Still, he hoped that this operation would be over with quickly.
The sheikh was waiting outside his hut, barefoot and in the white garb of his culture. Without a word, he motioned them to come inside of his hut. Wolfe could tell he was nervous. He motioned for two of his men to stay at the door.
As soon as he was inside, he took off his Kevlar helmet and set it on the table. The sheikh went to his spot at the table and yelled to his wife. In a moment, she had a tray full of small glasses and a pot of tea. Her hands shook, rattling the dishes.
Wolfe knew that the sheikh knew no English, so he started talking in his native Pashto immediately. "(I hear news that you've been speaking with the insurgency.)"
The sheikh looked at Wolfe. "(Sir,)" he started, then looked out the window quickly. Wolfe could smell a sudden wash of fear roll over him. "(I don't know what you're talking about.)"
Wolfe was on high alert. "(What's out the window?)"
The sheikh shrugged. Wolfe looked out the window himself. He didn't see anything, but the sheikh had a different angle. He moved toward him...
Suddenly, the sheikh raised up his hands, as if to protect himself. "(They made me! They made me!)" he yelled.
Wolfe realized this was an ambush. "It's a trap! Get back to the vehicles, quick!" His squad began to move for the door, but in a moment, he was transported to hell.
There was a series of explosions outside, and gunfire peppered the front of the house. Wolfe watched out the window as his two men that were outside went down. He hit the deck immediately, but not before seeing plumes of smoke rising from where the vehicles were parked. There was no return gunfire coming from that area.
He looked at his helmet and realized he couldn't get to it with all the bullets punching through the fragile mud hut. "Out the back door!" he yelled. The eight survivors began to work their way toward the back. Wolfe was the first one out, and he took up a kneeling position right outside the door. Each soldier got in a different position, covering a different firing lane.
They stayed there for a moment, stacking up, biding their time. Wolfe didn't know what to do exactly, but his training told him that they had to get out of there quick. He was about to order them to move to the next house over, when someone popped out of a house further back in the village. The weapon he was holding was all too familiar.
"RPG!" Wolfe yelled as an explosion hit the front of the house behind him. That probably saved his life, as it propelled him away from the house just as he saw the second rocket propelled grenade sail over his head. It hit the roof of the sheikh's house, and the second blast knocked the wind out of him. He struggled to get to his feet to try and return fire, barely pulling one of his men to safety before a bullet seared into his shoulder. The gunfire intensified. He fell to the ground again.
He watched as the man he had just rescued took a bullet to the face, and the rage began to build inside of him. Rage at the enemy, but at Akhtar in partic
ular. His vision tunneled, and as he began to pass out, the only thing he could think about was revenge.
***
A flash of light, and suddenly his vision was crystal clear.
Wolfe felt his body morphing. Changing. He dared not move with everything going on above him, but he felt the energy surging through him, along with the pain of his body rearranging itself.
He nearly passed out again, but as he looked up, he watched another squaddie go down, a bullet wound in his head as well. That was all he needed. In a moment, he was on all fours, somehow moving faster than he had ever moved. He galloped toward the nearest enemy combatant. The man never stood a chance.
He smelled the fear of a nearby man laying down with a rifle, and he watched as the rifle began to point toward him. Wolfe was on him before he could fire...
***
Still in a daze, he stacked the bodies of the enemy platoon in a neat pile, then took a lighter off of one of the men. He had to hide this. He sat naked next to the pile of bodies, watching as some of them still twitched as the fire caressed their bodies. One man regained consciousness enough to start screaming, startling Wolfe out of his shell shocked state. He reached out to the man, trying to pull him from the burning pile. In a moment, however, he saw the blood oozing from the mangled remains of his arms, legs, and torso, and he realized that the man would never survive. A nearby knife provided all the mercy that Wolfe could give the man as it raked across his throat.
Wolfe heard the horrified screams of women and children behind him, but he doubted he would have even understood them if they were speaking English. He dropped the knife and began to stagger away from the bodies and tried to get back to his uniform. He suddenly felt like he hadn't slept in days, and he passed out no more than ten paces from the pile of bodies.
***
An hour later, a platoon of infantry rolled up, ten times as armed as the last one had been. The infantry that had been under Wolfe were all dead, killed in their vehicles when the whole road blew up underneath them. Several mothers were crying over their dead children as the soldiers made their way to the sheikh's house. They glared at the soldiers and yelled at them as if the Americans had killed them instead of the bullets of their own people.
The sheikh's house was nothing but rubble, the sheikh and his wife buried alive. The two soldiers at the front of the house were positively identified, but some of the bodies in back would have to be brought back to the base before they could be ID'd. However, in a field of opium behind the house, they found one survivor.
"He's in shock," the field medic stated to the infantry commander. "Who knows what he's gone through? His clothes look like they've been torn from his body, though I see no signs of trauma other than this bullet wound. Even his dog tag chain is broken."
"Get him stabilized and call the chopper, we've got to air lift him out of here as soon as possible," the commander said.
"Sir, what about the people of the village. Some of them are saying something about a 'demon wolf'?"
The infantry commander paused. "Do you know what that means?"
The field medic sighed. "No, sir. And none of the enemies are still alive. We think it might be bombs that burned them, but we're not sure. Whatever got them, it did a thorough job."
"Then let's get our men out of here. If these assholes are too stupid to work their own bombs properly, then we have no time for them."
The field medic shouted a "Yes, sir!" and got on the radio about the chopper coming in. It wasn't until later that he noted in his after action review that the bodies of the enemy combatants were neatly stacked in a way that couldn't have possibly been from bombs going off.
Chapter 33
"I woke up in a medical tent with perfect memory of what had happened. I never told a soul what really happened until now," Jackson finished. "They had to tie me down at night because I would have nightmares about it. I struck an orderly once and broke his jaw."
He watched Chloe's face, trying to gauge her reaction. Her face was unreadable, only a slight frown creasing her forehead. The insides of his stomach knotted up, afraid she was going to tell him to get out. It had felt good to tell someone the truth, but now that he was finished, he was afraid.
"You were afraid you were going to hurt me, weren't you? That's why you pushed me away at first?" she asked. Jackson nodded.
"I don't want to hurt anyone again. Especially not you."
Chloe reached out a gentle hand, her fingers caressing the curve of Jackson's face. She smiled. "I knew from the moment I met you that you would never hurt me."
He kissed her hand, relief flooding through him. She didn't hate him. She pulled lightly at his chin, raising his face to look at hers.
"You don't hate me then? You're not afraid of me?" Jackson's voice quivered slightly as he looked into her beautiful green eyes.
"No. How could I hate you for defending yourself? Those men were going to kill you. They would have if you hadn't changed." She smiled. "Thank you for telling me. I know it was hard."
Jackson brushed a strand of brown hair off her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. She smiled, and pressed her cheek into his hand. He could feel her heart beating against his skin, strong and sure.
He leaned forward and kissed her. It was just a simple kiss, their lips touching for only a moment, but it held such power Jackson thought his heart might stop.
"I love you, Jackson," Chloe whispered. Her green eyes shone with the truth of her statement.
"I've loved you since the moment I saw you, Chloe. I'll love you forever." His voice failed him at the end, and he simply kissed her again.
Jackson's heart sang. He could be with her. She knew everything and she understood. She was his Fated One and he knew that he would love her until the end of his days.
She slipped her tongue between his lips, tasting him and giving him a taste of herself. The fire in Jackson's blood roared to life. Her scent enveloped him, and the only thing he could think of was her. Her insistent kisses told her she was thinking the same thing.
He was up and out of his chair in a heartbeat, leaning down and kissing her. His big hand wrapped around the side of her face, cradling her as he kissed her. She leaned up into him, allowing the passion to flow from her to him. As he continued to kiss her, she could feel him building up to a frenzy. The scruff of his face tickled hers as his kisses became more and more animalistic.
Soon, he had pulled her to her feet. She jumped up into his huge, muscular arms and wrapped her legs around him, feeling the heat radiating off every inch of his body. His hands supported her ass as she began to grind against him. Her shirt was off in a heartbeat, and his wasn't far behind. She pulled her bra off quickly, allowing their chests to touch. He pressed her against his body, and she loved the feeling of the muscles in his chest.
His fingers dug into her ass through her jeans, and she worked her nails into the hard strength of his back. As she felt her nail draw blood, he seemed to roar. Finally, she thought. He pulled away from the kiss, his golden eyes looking at her with a hunger and intensity that she had never seen before. His hands moved to her sides, and as he lifted, she unraveled herself from him.
In a moment, she was flying through the air, still supported by his strong hands. As she landed on the bed, she squealed with laughter. When she looked up at him, he had no such humor on his face. He was pawing at her pants, and she lifted her hips to help him. In another moment, they were down off her ankles. She was glad that she hadn't worn her best panties, because in the next moment he had his hands inside the crotch, tearing them from her body with a loud ripping sound.
She gasped, amazed as his strength and ferociousness. As soon as the remnants of her underwear were off her body, she felt his stubble against her inner thigh. Her hands went to his hair as he began to lick her, lapping at her labia like the thirstiest man in the world. The long strokes of his tongue immediately began to get her worked up, and she writhed into his face. Soon, however, he began to make the st
rokes shorter and shorter, concentrating on just her nub.
As his tongue began to rapidly flick against her clit, she found herself quickly rising up. The combination of the heat from his body and the sweat that was already forming on the both of their bodies made her super aware of every move that he made. It felt like nothing she had ever experienced before. It felt like heaven.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him, only to see his yellow eyes looking up at her with a lust that could never be sated. He was drinking in her entire body with his eyes, every dimple, every inch of her skin. Her chin tilted up and her eyes rolled back into her head as his efforts intensified.
She, too, felt an animal desire within her. She didn't know if it was related to the werewolf gene, only that he could feel the wolf within him and that it was affecting her thoughts as well. She began to moan in a way that she never had before, just as the first wave of the orgasm hit.
She squeezed her legs together with strength she didn't know she had, drawing him in further. His strong hands moved to hold her at bay as he still licked her furiously. Her hips continued to buck as he pleasured her, wave after wave of sheer ecstasy running through her like a drug.
As she began to come down off her orgasm, he abruptly stopped. She caught a flash of his teeth, his incisors grown out to a longer length, just long enough to be noticed. He kept his eyes locked on her as he removed his belt and pulled down his pants. His penis was huge and erect, and she could tell that her body was all that he could think about. As he stood before her for a moment naked, she realized that she could never be apart from him again.
He only stood like that for a moment before he was upon her, moving faster than she had ever seen a man move. She heard his guttural growl as he began to kiss her neck, his hips arching toward her. She could feel his huge manhood press against her velvet folds, and she yielded to his advances. In a moment, he was within her, filling her completely. She could feel herself spreading to accept him, and it was a feeling that she knew she would never get used to, and certainly never tire of.
