SixBarkPackTabooMobi

by Carys Weldon

  I don’t, exactly, know what he’d been thinking before. But I think he was surprised to realize I was alive. I mean, my smell--the scent of my sex--was all over the place. The air was thick with it. He’d walked in on that so many times. Always told me my screwing around was gonna get me killed. Plus, there was the smell of fresh blood, and I’d been screaming my fool head off just seconds before they burst in on us.

  It took a few for him to finally get the fact that I was alive...and not letting Bark put me aside. That was a first.

  I’d enjoyed watching my brothers in action before. Always stepped aside to let them do their thing. Encouraged them, even.

  Yeah. I never billed myself to be a saint. I’m a friggin’ cat woman, for Gaia’s sake. Not a member of PETA.

  Not that I’m against them. By all means, save us all. But, really, their ads make me laugh.

  There was nothing funny in that cabin, though. Not then. One wrong move, and any one of us could end up dead.

  I itched to turn crinos. You know--so I could protect. Myself. My...men. Bark. My brothers. Whose defense would I leap to?

  Ah, I wanted to run. Let them work it out. But I was afraid to.

  Tails turned, got stiff. Razor claws flexed. Everybody waited for someone else to make a mistake. To say the wrong thing.

  So, should I mention that it never occurred to me that I was naked? Not that it would have mattered. Compare bastet thinking to Asian. We bathe as a family. We swim nude. We aren’t prudes. But we can be very...propriety conscious, when the mood suits us, depending on company. That’s how we are.

  And that’s what it all came down to. Who we were. And what he was.

  Sleeping with each other--had been suicide. Taboo. They were gonna kill him and then Daddy would slash my throat himself. Enough was enough. Some things were just too much.

  Leo surprised us all, breaking the silence by asking softly, “You know his name, Le?”

  Bark jerked. He stopped working to get shed of me.

  Leo’s body language cried I’m gonna kill you both.

  I stuttered, “Ye--yes. B--Bark.”

  Almost sadly, Leo shook his head. “No.” He corrected me. “His name is...Nine.”

  Panic.

  “No. No!”

  Tommy clarified, “Not a number, Leo. Bark. Fucking...Barklay.” Said it like it meant something.

  Bark smiled, exposing saber fangs. “I thought I recognized a family resemblance.”

  He wasn’t talking about me, believe it or not. Connected me to my mother, and that to Lionel--the whole family by way of that. Barklay, it turns out, has been fascinated with bastet history and politics for a very long time. Been through all the old papers, newsreels.

  So, back to the moment.

  That family resemblance comment made me flinch. Bark and Tommy knew each other? I eased my grip, just a little. I didn’t know whose face to watch. But, honestly, I knew already that Leo was the loose cannon.

  Tom straightened his back, rose up to his full height, but he didn’t lower his gun. He let his gaze wander, knowing full well that Leo would pounce if Bark so much as bristled a hair.

  “How’d you find the place?” Even then, Bark’s voice sounded very easygoing.

  “Had a call, or two,” Tommy said. “I never expected it would come out this way.”

  “Everybody calm down.” Yeah. That was not my usual line.

  My brothers glanced my way--with one eye a piece.

  “Put your gun away, Tom--my.” My mistake. I knew it before I had his whole name out. He leveled it, even as I added, “There’s garou all over out there.”

  “Yeah? I don’t hear any howling. Do you?” Tommy raised his lip in the semblance of a grin. A self-satisfied expression.

  “They’ll be back any minute.” Part of me hoped it was true. Hoped my brothers would get in their car and disappear before it happened. Surely Bark’s people would be back soon. Chasing after one paparazzi couldn’t take all night, could it? There was no way my brothers got through them, killed them all, without us hearing it, was there? Even they weren’t that good.

  “Shut up, puss,” Bark urged me to close my lips, but he had relaxed a little. His fingers started sliding up and down, caressing my arm. Those claws--were retracted. Amazing, considering the type of beast he’d turned into.

  Always so gentle.

  “Get your hands off of her,” Leo hissed. “Before I rip your throat out.”

  Bark chuckled at that. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “Stop!” I appealed to Tommy. “Make them--”

  But Tommy interrupted me with, “You heard him.”

  It almost killed me. Shocked the hell out of me...when Bark lifted his hands--both of them--into the air. Totally non-aggressively, too. Didn’t flick those claws out on that one hand.

  Tommy said, “Pull her free, Leo.”

  Digging my toes in, I locked my hands around Bark’s waist. For as big as the rest of him was, he came to a tight V above the hips. The corded muscles of his thighs were so much thicker than they had been that he had to bend at the knee to accommodate me so he didn’t lift me off the ground.

  No one could have denied his physical presence. His Adonis sculpturing. Even with the pronounced lupine features. The extra, crisp hair that had sprouted thickly over his back.

  Leo got a hold of me, cussed when he couldn’t pull me away easily. Careful not to get in too close where Bark could slash him directly, he gritted, “I’m gonna fucking kill you myself, Le. Let go.”

  That, apparently, did it for Bark. In one swipe, he knocked Leo off balance, bounced him into the wall--sent me spinning. The turn of his body shielded me, but gave Tommy a clean shot, hitting Barklay in the ribs. That didn’t stop him, though. He kicked out, popping the gun out of Tommy’s hand before another shot rang through the air. Tommy pulled the trigger at the last second, but the bullet went into the ceiling.

  My brothers didn’t think twice. They matrixed off the walls. By that, I mean--they defied gravity, showed off their cat skills. Climbed the freaking walls, slashing to Bark’s gnashing. They were everywhere at once, and he was turning, deflecting them with unbelievable swiftness and accuracy. Snarling to his growling. Squealing to his howling.

  Not that he was calling in his pack. No, I think he had every intention of taking care of it all himself. But I heard distant, answering lupines.

  I knew we had to get out of there or my brothers and I would be dead. How, though, to get my brothers safe?

  You can see, by that point, I realized that--even wounded with a bullet--Bark could hold his own against the two of them. That’s why he’d been trying to get me out of the way. He didn’t need my sissy ass for protection.

  The wolves were getting closer. Too close.

  It never occurred to me to crinos and tip the scales. The fight, in my opinion, was stupid. It needed to be stopped, not finished. I didn’t want anybody hurt, or dead.

  And already there was blood flying. More of Bark’s than anybody’s, because of the bullet that had ripped through him and out. But Leo and Tommy were getting tore up a little, too.

  I screamed for them to quit. That didn’t stop the bouncing, kick box claw fest, though. Talk about your thick heads. Too into it, I guess.

  For the first time in my life, I felt remorse for screwing around. Not that I ever felt sorry about being with Bark--really. But, for bringing Leo and Tommy to a place like that. For putting any of them in the position where they had to posture up.

  Taking responsibility was a big friggin’ step for me. But I had to go one more--and come up with a way to fix the mess. The best thing I could think to do turned out not to be so hard, after all. It was my specialty.

  Pop-shifting to full cougar, I let out a sissy hiss and flew out the door. Pulled my Houdini. They could kill themselves or chase. I was betting on them following me. They always had before.

  Leaping in high gear, I bounced over the bushes, across the sedan, and headed into the woo
ds. A wolf howl gave me a little bearing on the direction I didn’t want to go. I veered west, figured I’d loop around garou-ville, and get closer to a better side of town. Not that I was heading home. Just getting out of there. Right? But, yeah, your internal compass tends to direct you to your home lair. All in all, I was working my way north in no time flat.

  I prayed to Gaia that my brothers had heard me and were hot on my tracks. It never occurred to me that, if they were on my trail, it would be easy for the whole wolf pack to follow, too.

  Several miles out, I stopped for a breather. As far as I could tell, no one was coming. No wolves howling on a hunt. I walked through a creek, to cool my feet, to clear my trail. Went quite a ways like that.

  I worried a little about my brothers--had the pack got them? Is that why they hadn’t caught up with me yet? And about Bark. I prayed they hadn’t killed him, that they’d had the sense to get out of there. But what if they hadn’t got free? What if he’d bested them? You can see I was making myself sick over it. I deserved that, I think.

  Maybe the minute I took off, one or the other got distracted enough to--

  No. I did not want to think about that possibility.

  Wading through the water, up to my knees, sometimes up to my belly, I realized that I needed to get home. That was the only way I’d know what happened. It was really the only safe place I knew of. And I had a sudden need to be safe.

  More important, I needed to warn Daddy that the wolf pack might be on its way. Because, if they had killed Bark, there was no doubt that the lupes would get their own back, one way or the other. I didn’t face the alternative, really, that my brothers may have met death right after I left them--that maybe I should have fought on their side.

  How many times had Daddy said that we needed to know what side we were on, and stay on it, not ride the fence? Stand up for what we believe in. I always thought he’d been talking about racism. Maybe he was? And politics. Yeah. He was definitely talking about politics.

  Could he have been right all this time, and I just didn’t see it?

  No. I’d done a lot of good when I was mixing it up with other people. Made a lot of people think better about my kind. Okay. Maybe a few turned the other way. But, all in all, I’d been a people pleaser. Good P.R. girl.

  The problem was that some people didn’t know how to let others live. Attacking somebody where they lived--that’s just plain wrong.

  I saw where Leo and Tommy had done that to Bark. And how Barklay’s family might come to the compound, with the same attitude. I hated it all, wished they could stop.

  It didn’t matter that I hated the thought of going home and facing Daddy. The more I thought of it, the more I realized that the wolves would end up at the door, no matter what had happened behind me, at Bark’s cabin. Leo and Tommy had crossed the line.

  Oh, how I tried to push the thought that they wouldn’t have done it, if it weren’t for my stunts, out of my mind.

  Getting to Daddy, getting into the compound, became my driving thought, the thing I latched onto.

  I never once thought of confessing to sleeping with Barklay. And I’d forgotten about my hair, and escaping, and all my other little crimes of the last twenty-four hours.

  Not telling him that we had riled up the wolves would have been unforgivable. I had faith that Daddy could fix anything. That he could stop the wide-scale annihilation of bastets, which, suddenly, seemed like a real possibility.

  All the things Ali had said came back to haunt me. Every leap, every bounce, every mile...I realized that I had tripped a finely laid wire. She’d tried to warn me. Bark had tried to set me back on my heels. Gaia knew Daddy and Leo and Tommy had tried to get it into my head that the world was not safe for little girls like me to play around in.

  I made myself totally ill. Broke the pace to throw up even. Had to get a drink, rinse my mouth.

  Picking up speed, I left the stream behind me. The truth that maybe I had paid more attention to politics, or maybe all that I’d heard, in one ear and out the other, had actually clicked in, just been waiting for my perfect recall to decide to review it, kind’ve hit me. The full ramification of the fact that my whole world could come crashing down nearly did me in. Certainly gave fleet to my feet. Lesson to the wise? Never think that a war somewhere else can’t end up in your own yard. That’s what Daddy had been trying to tell me. I’d been so stupid, thinking that what other men did wouldn’t, eventually, affect me.

  Their hours watching Lupe Press TV all made sense to me...finally. What the dogs did, did matter. Gaia. I felt like such a fool for not seeing it before.

  My mind was circling. Was it better to be the victim or the perpetrator? I didn’t believe either side was good, or right. But maybe you do need to decide which you want to be?

  Even with all the energy that pushed me to race home, I lost my momentum by the time I got close. Lost in trying to decide. I think that happens to a lot of us. We get so fuddled up in thinking, that we don’t make the necessary decisions.

  One thing about that...if you don’t make the decision for yourself, someone else will. In some ways, I’m very grateful for the strong men in my life. Men who take action. Makes me proud.

  Made me wish I could just...hug them. And stop the nonsense. That I could sit down to dinner, like a civilized person--with all the people I love.

  My steps slowed more and more. With dread. With indecision.

  Sitting with Daddy, Tommy, Leo and Bark would probably, no, could never happen. Maybe I should go away and hide somewhere? Die on my own. I could see nothing but misery.

  Gaia, Bark’s cabin had been miles away!

  My feet were sore. My head pounded. And I had to wonder, as I slowed my steps, when had I lost those cute shoes? Okay, I was looking for any return to normalcy.

  Not that I’d have had them on in full cougar. But I had liked them a lot. And I couldn’t remember shedding them.

  Wherever they were, they were safe. Safe in Bark’s car? Or at his cabin?

  Oh, I longed for the feel of his arms around me.

  Sirens. I heard sirens in the city. Lots of them. I did my best to ignore them.

  And gunshots. Lots of gunshots. As I drew close to the compound, they got louder.

  Dawn rose above me.

  Holy Gaia. It looked like a war zone out front. All around. Cars, SUVs, trucks--racing everywhere. Uzi fire.

  You can’t imagine the horror. Or the relief when I saw Tommy’s car inside the gates.

  I laid low, tried to figure out--

  How long had it been going on? There were dead bodies inside the gate, and outside, too. Too many to count.

  Daddy yelled, “Where the hell is she?” It was unbelievable that his voice carried, but I was upwind, looking down a hill on the whole scene.

  Poking my head out, I tried to see where he was at. The house was far enough in that I couldn’t have heard him from there.

  They were screaming above and between the intermittent gunfire. Leo answered, “She took off! Headed this way!”

  So they couldn’t have been there long.

  Leo told Daddy, “I need a gun!” And, after Daddy popped some shots off with his .44, “Tommy’s hurt--in the car.”

  My heart lurched. Tommy was hurt? Because of me? I wanted to go to him. Another volley of shots, two more drivebys. They seemed to be making circles of the perimeter. Every couple of minutes, more cars, different trucks. In and out.

  Ah. I saw where Daddy and Leo were. On the back side of the car, ducked down. What had Daddy been doing out there, so close to the gates?

  Looking for me? Waiting for them?

  Leo hollered, “Tom, hang on. We’ll get you out of there.”

  Vehicles from the house came streaming up the drive, guns blazing. The rescue team leaped out, helped pull Tommy from the car. There was blood everywhere, all down his front. He cried out as they yanked him around.

  Even at that, I heard Tommy say, “You gotta find her before they do. They’ll
kill her!”

  Soft as silk, I heard in my ear, “Too late.”

  Before I could react, a crinos paw clamped on my muzzle and pulled me backward farther into the bushes.

  Chapter Seven

  How in hell could I have been so stupid as to not had my nose and ears up? Let me tell you, for the first time in my life, I’d been concerned about someone besides myself. It had been a little all-consuming.

  Stupid.

  Unbelievably stupid.

  Thank Gaia the paw that nabbed me was Bark’s. But he was furious. Putting it mildly.

  The minute I realized it was him, I stopped my clawing and hissing, but that wasn’t until after I’d sliced him on the legs a few times. Yeah. That didn’t set too well. And believe it or not, my squalling came at a juncture between Uzi-fire. Friggin’ of course!

  So...my family knew I was out there, in trouble.

  It only took a second for Barklay to get me on the ground. I could tell he wasn’t sure about me, if he could trust me or not. He didn’t let me go very fast.

  In fact, he watched my face for a long time--endless seconds?--before easing out, “You run. I chase.”

  I tried to read his meaning. I felt like I’d been hunted down. He looked angry enough to eat me alive.

  His eyes blazed. Glowed. There was no question, if he gave me an inch, I’d run. I’d take off, as fast as I could, running for my dear life.

  Maybe he read that in my eyes, or felt it in the heave of my chest, the race of my pulse. Honestly? I was paralyzed with fear. Thought I was facing death.

  Crinos werewolf fangs are horrifying at any angle, but from below? Knowing your throat and belly are exposed? You can’t even swallow.

  Bark peered at me, tipping his muzzle, sniffing my fear. His nose huffed, riffling the fur on my chest.

  Tickling my nipples, making them harden.

  Yes. There is a certain titillation in stark terror. A tingling jittered between my legs, and I knew moisture seeped from me.

  Wept for what we’d had?

  Arching his back and neck, so he could look between us--the scent must’ve hit his nose within seconds--he grumbled under his breath. Something about Gaia helping him, being cursed, accentuated with a “Fuck.”