by Sky Winters
“They took Ali,” Moose said, feeling as if he was in some state of shock. How many times did he have to face losing the same woman? This time, there was even more at stake. Not only was she gone, but she was carrying his child. Did the Dire Wolves know that too and how? How many rats could there possibly be in their pack? “Alright. We’re not wasting any time. We’ll find out how many of them are left. We’re going in after her. Anyone who wants to go with me, come on. Everyone else can stay behind and lick their wounds.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, shifting and taking to the woods. It felt like he covered the distance in half his usual time, his body alive with adrenaline as his fear kicked in and spat out endomorphines that fueled him on. He was relieved to hear the hoof prints running alongside and behind him, though he didn’t take the time to see how many.
They surrounded the Dire Wolf clubhouse and waited along the edge of the woods. What they were waiting on, Moose wasn’t even quite sure, but he would know when he saw it. He didn’t have to wait long. A figure emerged from the front of the place led by Ali, who appeared to have her feet and hands bound, though her feet were spaced enough to allow her to take short steps.
He watched as she was led to a large hook that hung from a tree branch overhead. She fought but was no match for the young men and women surrounding her. They raised her up, placing the rope between her hands over the hook so she hung there, balanced on her tiptoes. Moose was livid and prepared to charge, but was stopped by Aspen.
“Wait, brother. Just wait.”
A woman emerged from the clubhouse. Moose saw red and was having a hard time controlling his temper in that moment. It was Harley and, in her arms, was a baby.
“We know you are out there. You killed our men. You’ve killed our teens. You’ve even killed our babies. If you attempt to come for the rest of us, we’ll shoot her in the head.”
Ali hung from the hook, looking as if she might pass out at any moment. Moose wondered if they had given her something to sedate her. If she had been given anything, that might hurt their baby.
“Do you think she’s telling the truth? Do you think we killed all the males old enough to fight or is it a setup?” Grant whispered, resuming his human form. Aspen and Moose did the same, while the rest of their numbers maintained their wolf forms.
“I don’t know. Can we afford to find out? Look on the porch. The woman there has a scope trained on Ali.”
“We have to be able to afford it. I can’t just let her hang there like that. She’s my wife and she’s pregnant!”
“I know, Moose, but we can’t afford one shot aimed at her temple either. We have to be smart.”
Moose couldn’t hear him right now. He couldn’t absorb what he was saying. All he felt was anger flowing through him like a fast fueled rage that threatened to burn him alive if he didn’t redirect it elsewhere. He looked around for Timmy, finding him standing in a nearby grove, his distinct tan coat with a patch of white on his snout visible even in the falling light.
He made three low bird calls, an old code between the pack. Timmy moved slowly around the edge of the trees. Careful not to spook the markswoman on the front patio of the clubhouse. He stopped beside Moose and listened intently as he spoke, nodding his massive wolf head in acknowledgment.
“We’re going in,” Moose said. “We need to be prepared for anything.”
“Moose, you’re my brother, but you aren’t thinking clearly. You’re not the leader of this pack and I’m not going to give my command for them to proceed into a slaughter,” Aspen told him.
“I don’t have time to play games, Aspen. I know you have the greater good on your head, but if that was Amanda or Elizabeth, you’d do exactly as me. You’d charge in and take what belongs to you.”
Aspen considered this for a moment and nodded his head, listening as Moose shared his plan with him. Grant looked doubtful, but nodded his agreement, as did Aspen. Moose prayed it would work. He stood a chance of losing everything if it didn’t. On his cue, Timmy lunged forward from the position he had taken up by the front patio and knocked the shooter forward. The silence was suddenly filled with the deafening sound of the gun going off and Moose’s heart stopped, but he kept surging forward, now back in wolf form.
They hit the front door running, their collective weight bursting it wide open. They were met with women and children holding guns and a handful of men that had remained in hiding. Harley was nowhere to be found. Snarls and blood once again filled the air as they aimed to only take out those deemed lethal to them. The women and children were, for the most part, spared. Many of them ran away in the face of being mauled by the advancing Silver Wolves.
Why they had set themselves up for such a massacre was beyond Moose, but they had always been hot heads, more concerned with being fearless than being smart. They didn’t like to lose and would keep coming until they had nothing to come at you with. When all was said and done, another dozen Dire Wolves lay dead in the floor, along with a few women and several boys. Moose looked upon them sadly, horrified that their hand had been forced into taking young lives, females.
With things in control, he ran back outside. Timmy had already made it back out and pulled Ali down, getting her to cover quickly on his back. Moose joined them at the edge of the woods nearby, patting her cheek with his hand to rouse her.
“Come back to me, Ali. Are you okay? Did they give you something? Do something to you?” he asked her.
Timmy stood watch as he focused on reviving her, finally managing to arouse her. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. She seemed a bit delirious but awake. He leaned closer as she said something to him over and over in a raspy voice.
“Take their claws. Make sure you take all the male Dire Wolves claws,” she told him.
“What? Why?”
“Just do it,” she said weakly.
Moose knew there must be a reason. He looked up at Timmy and told him to make sure it was done. He shifted and pushed his body beneath hers, putting her onto his back as he made his way through the woods to the doctor’s office. It seemed like the minutes ticked past at the speed of hours as he waited for her to tell him that everything was alright. He texted Aspen while he waited to make sure what she had asked had been done.
“Yes, but I don’t know why,” Aspen replied.
“Moose?” the doctor called out from her exam chambers nearby.
“Yes?” he said, stepping over to the door from which she emerged.
“She’s asking for you.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. Just every dehydrated and exhausted, but nothing some fluids and rest won’t cure. I’ve got her on a saline drip to get her system back up to par. Let her get a bag of it into her system and then I’ll check her vitals again. If she is back to tolerable levels, you can take her home.”
“Thank God,” he said.
She nodded and smiled, letting him go inside the room. He stepped in to find Ali smiling weakly at him.
“The baby is okay, yes?” she asked.
“Yes. The doctor says everything is fine. Baby and you.”
“I’m so glad. I just wanted to see you. I think I need to sleep a while.”
“Get some rest. I’ll be right here.”
Moose sat down in the chair by her bed and dozed off. Now that the danger had passed, he felt just as exhausted as she must be. He considered running away with her, giving up the pack life and just pretending they were normal humans. No one had to know what he was, what their child was. Moose knew he could never do it, though. Wolves without a pack experienced extreme depression after a while, no matter what sort of immediate family they had.
His thoughts gave way to blackness as sleep took him over. It was the last thing he remembered until the doctor woke him up once again to tell him they could go home.
Chapter Ten
Back at the clubhouse, Ali had gone straight back to bed. Moose had joined her for a while but was unable to sleep. He went down to the lobby to watch
television where he wouldn’t wake her. He soon found himself joined by Aspen.
“How’s your girl?” he asked.
“She’s better. Still very tired. Sleeping.”
“Did she tell you why she wanted the claws?” he asked.
“I have no idea. It’s been a rough day and I didn’t want to push her too hard. Fuck, it’s our honeymoon. We’re supposed to be sipping margaritas on the beach by now.”
“That sucks, but hopefully, you can work out a new trip soon.”
“I’m sure we will. Could use a vacation from all the chaos that has been hitting this place constantly the past few years.”
“Right there with you, brother,” Aspen said.
“How did things end up over at the Dire Wolves. What did you do with the leftovers?”
“There weren’t many. Most of the human women had already bugged out. The shifter women had joined other packs that didn’t mind having a stray as a wife. The ones that were left were either killed in the fray or ran off.”
“How many kids did we kill?” Moose wailed.
“Only a couple that attacked us, older ones. Harley killed those who wouldn’t fight us.”
“Harley? What?”
“Yeah. Turns out she was pregnant with a Dire Wolf baby. Decided she could start some new pack and rule it as a human mother of a shifter. Her plan was to wipe out what was left of the old pack, the widows, orphans, and cowards hiding in their basement. That’s why she took Ali. She knew you’d be hellbent to come after her.”
“Where is Harley now?”
“Dead.”
“The baby. I assume it was hers. Where is it now?”
“It’s here. Carter and his wife have him for the time being.”
“What the hell are we going to do with a Dire Wolf orphan?”
“Haven’t decided yet. Maybe turn him over to an orphanage or just raise him as our own. Not tell him who he is.”
“That’s a heavy secret.”
“Yeah, but we couldn’t leave him behind. No one wanted to take him, and we burned the clubhouse to the ground so they can’t come back.”
“So, that’s the end of the Dire Wolves? Once and for all?”
“Hell if I know, brother, but I think it might be the end of the ones that are hellbent on killing us off. We have two babies, one on the way and one we might just add to the pot and see what happens. It’s enough to get this pack moving forward again. That’s what matters.”
“I hope it is the end. I’m getting old. I’m over forty-five years old and just now having a baby. I don’t know how much more my heart can take.”
“I understand where you are coming from. It’s got to get better. I agree,” Aspen told him, standing, and clapping him firmly on the shoulder. “Now, get back to bed and get some sleep. Our work today is done.”
Moose nodded and clicked off the television, returning to his room to curl up with Ali as she slept. By the following day, she seemed more herself and none the worse for wear after the previous day’s events. They made love in the morning, their bodies aching for one another as they always did.
He couldn’t get enough of her. She still felt tired and a little sore, but didn’t seem to care. Sleep was over for him as he reached for her. He wanted to feel her ache, wanted to be inside her, all the time. He wanted to feel her slight weight on top of him, riding him slowly; riding him hard; watching him or closing her eyes to enjoy how he felt inside. It was all good.
He couldn’t get enough of her sweat dropping down onto him as her thighs squeezed into his sides – as her pussy walls grabbed hold of his cock and milked it eagerly. It was like inventing something. It was like creating love, the most incredible love anyone had ever experienced, except this one was special. It was theirs and theirs along.
She rocked back and forth on top of him, being in charge and yet letting him take control somehow. She was a contrast and a paradox of some sort. She held his hands down by his sides and he pretended to try to get free of her grip, unsuccessfully. Her tits bounced up and down, sometimes brushing against the hair on his chest as she leaned forward to grind against him.
Her swollen belly was full of his child, full of the love they shared. It was hard to believe this. There was no end to them, only new things, all new things. She pushed forward and he replied by pushing back. Tit for tat, so to speak. She pulled free of him just as he was about to explode, letting him spill his load all over her engorged breasts, dripping down her nipples as she raised a single finger and tasted it. She was a dirty girl and he loved her.
They rose and showered together before making their way down to breakfast. Aspen was waiting to speak to everyone, to reassure them that things would be calmer now, that a new day was quickly rising to meet their feet on the road beneath them. It sparked something in Ali, who had been mostly out of it yesterday. She turned to Aspen and asked if he had brought the claws back.
“Yes, but I don’t know why,” he told her.
“Because they are our future. I figured out what Amanda, Elizabeth, and I all have in common,” she told him.
He looked at her, puzzled, but Amanda’s face suddenly lit up with understanding. It was obvious that she knew what Ali was about to say before she even uttered the words.
“Dire Wolves scratched us. Not long before we each became pregnant, we were each scratched by a Dire Wolf.”
“I don’t understand,” Aspen said.
“I don’t either, exactly. I just know that only the women in his clubhouse that have been scratched by the claws of a Dire Wolf have gotten pregnant. That’s why I wanted the claws. If I’m right, then we should be able to completely reverse the curse that has plagued this pack for so long.”
“What if it doesn’t?” one of the women asked.
“Then I’m wrong and it just doesn’t. What do you have to lose other than a little blood? It doesn’t have to be a horrible scratch. I will warn you that it leave an ugly mark, so choose where you want it wisely. All three of us, have ridges where the scratch has healed. Just look at Elizabeth’s arm. It’s not the worst looking thing once it’s had time to thin out and fade, but you’ll want it out of sight, given a choice.”
“Where are they?” another woman asked, rolling up her sleeve.
“I have them put away. I vote we finish breakfast and scratch every woman in this pack that wants to get pregnant.”
“I don’t like pain. I’m not sure I want to be scratched,” one of the women added.
“Then you don’t want to get pregnant either. Childbirth is definitely worse than a scratch,” Elizabeth asked.
“Okay. Fair enough. Maybe I just need a few shots first then,” the woman replied.
“For the scratch or childbirth?” Grant teased.
“Both, probably. I’m a bit of a pussy.”
Her comments drew a healthy round of laughter from around the table. Once everyone was done with breakfast, Grant and Aspen formed two lines in the front lobby. Each one held a Dire Wolf claw in their hand and made a small scratch wherever they were asked to place it. After a while, the women who were willing to try died out and they returned the claws to the vault in the office. If they worked, they would be valued relics in their pack for generations to come.
No one knew if one scratch only allowed women to get pregnant once or if they would have to be scratched each time. They didn’t know if it would work on all the women or if they would have to make bigger scratches to accomplish their goals. It was something they would just have to learn as time went on. For now, it was a place to start and it was a new hope they hadn’t had before.
Chapter Eleven
The following month, Ali gave birth to a son named David Alan Kelley, Jr. There was no drama involved, no complications, no attacks. She simply went into labor and was taken to the doctor’s office for delivery. Their lives seemed to have finally reached a level of tranquility that they could only have imagined several months before.
With the end to the Dire Wolves, m
any of the couples had finally been able to leave the clubhouse and find homes outside the pack. Of course, they were all still close and came together often at the clubhouse for meetings and gatherings where they could all share food, drink, and fun with one another.
Ali and Moose had stayed in the adjoining rooms for several months after the baby was born while they built a new home on property left vacant by Dire Wolves that had disappeared. Despite a few visits from the authorities, no one had ever been able to conjure up enough evidence to tie a single person at the Silver Wolves MC to anything that happened with the Dire Wolves MC or the incident at a certain hotel garage.
Now, here they all were, together, for a pack-style picnic. Aspen manned the grill while his uncle propped up in an oversized lawn chair nearby, enjoying a cigar and brandy. He smiled kindly down at the group of children playing nearby.
There were four of them, all about the same age. They were taking turns shifting into wolf puppies and howling as loudly as they could. Then, they would shift back and giggle at the other five year olds in their circle. Aspen, Grant, Moose, and Carter stood in a similar circle nearby, smiling proudly down on their sons. Though it was fairly common knowledge in the pack that Carter was not the natural father of the boy he called his own, it was not something anyone every gave a second thought to.
One thing that seemed to be true was that the Dire Wolf claws they kept in the office safe worked. All around them, outside the small circle created by the boys they liked to refer to playfully as the Four Dog Knights, were children not much younger, playing and laughing or shifting back and forth just for fun.
After the initial experiment with the claw, there had been a huge baby boom. It had worked a bit too well and they have been forced to space out future use among their members. The other thing that happened was that they discovered that while a scratch would allow them to have a baby, it would only allow one. If they wanted more, they had to be scratched again. Several had done so before they put a hold on future births to contain their own population spurt.
