by Naomi Clark
She whispered my name lovingly as she explored and aroused my body, teasing me into a mindless frenzy in the thick half-dark. Silvery shadows slipped around us, illuminating Shannon’s sensuous curves as she moved over me. My skin tingled as if all my nerve endings were exposed to her touch. I sought her lips, my hands trailing down between her thighs, fingers seeking out the heat of her to make her cry out with the same passion I was.
And afterwards, sated and shivering with the aftershocks, we lay together and mumbled sweet nonsense to each other, and I was reminded once again why I always came back to humanity.
T
he funeral was as funerals are. Our Lady of Mercy church was packed–pun intended–and although I did look for my parents, I didn’t see them amongst the black-clad throng. Vince gripped my hand throughout the service as I struggled not to cry. It felt odd, hearing the vicar talk about Adam when I’d known so little about him. The little cub I’d taught to chase rabbits was long gone and the young man he’d become was a stranger to me.
A few pews ahead my aunt Vivian, Adam’s mother, shook with silent sobs and my uncle Chris pulled her hard against his side, as if he could shield her from her son’s death. That moved me more than anything, the solidarity between them, the palpable aura of grief and love around them. The wake was held in a Pack-owned pub a few streets from the church. When I was a kid the Moon in the Water had been called the Prince Regent and it had been a dive, a hangout for human junkies and drunks. Now it was a flourishing business, attracting Pack and humans alike. Today it was closed to humans, however, as the church had been. I sat at the bar nursing half a pint and wondered what Shannon was doing.
A light touch on my shoulder and a waft of rose perfume was all the warning I had that my mother had found me. I stiffened as I turned to face her, part of me automatically assessing myself for flaws. My shirt hadn’t been ironed, my shoes needed polishing, my leather jacket didn’t go with my linen trousers…
“Ayla,” Mum whispered. “Oh, Ayla, I’m so glad you’re here.” She flung her arms around me before I could respond and, unsure what else to do, I returned her crushing embrace. When we broke apart she held onto my arms, looking me over with moist eyes. “You dyed your hair,” she said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. How like my mum. “I never liked being blonde.”
She smiled tremulously. “Vince said he’d invited you. I didn’t know… Your dad and I hoped you’d come. We–” She stopped, reaching into her suit pocket for a tissue to wipe her eyes “You’ll come for dinner tonight, won’t you? You are staying in town, aren’t you?”
I hesitated. I wanted to, God knew I wanted to, but I was unsure of Shannon’s welcome. “I’d love to,” I said honestly. “If I can bring my partner.”
Surprise and concern flickered over Mum’s face. “You’re seeing someone? A wolf? A man?”
I struggled to suppress the .are of rage that sparked inside me. “A woman.” I held back ‘a human.’ It didn’t seem like the right time.
Mum swallowed whatever she wanted to say with a visible effort. “We’d love to meet her,” she said determinedly. We shared strained smiles but were saved from further tension by the appearance of Chris. He was my maternal uncle, so it was little surprise when he turned to Mum with anguish raw on his face.
“Anna, Ayla–” He stopped and shook his head. “God, will this day never end?”
Mum hugged him as fiercely as she had me, but said nothing. I guess there was nothing to say. I sipped at my drink, searching for something myself. All that came to mind was Shannon’s question from yesterday. “Do the police have any leads?”
Chris shook his head again. “We all know it was Alpha Humans, but nobody’s bloody doing anything. My boy, beaten, mutilated–”
“Mutilated?” I cut in, louder than I’d intended. “Mutilated how?” I’d followed Alpha Humans’ activities closely since as a lone wolf I was maybe more vulnerable than most. I’d never heard of them mutilating their victims.
Chris nodded, pressing his hand to his temple. “They skinned him. Took–” He broke down, great sobs shaking his big frame. Mum slipped her arm round his waist and steered him away from the bar, casting a glance back at me and mouthing ‘call me.’
S
hannon greeted me back at Joel and Vince’s with a tight hug and a soft kiss. “How was it?”
“Funeral.” I shrugged out of my coat and kicked off my boots. “My uncle Chris said Adam had been mutilated–skinned. Did you ever hear of an Alpha Human attack like that?”
“Not Alpha Humans, no.” She sat down on the leather couch with me. “There was a case back in the sixties where some supposed Satanists skinned a wolf though, saying it would give them special powers. We covered it in History one year.” She shook her head as if shaking away the thought. “Any word from the police?”
I snorted. “If they know anything, they’re not sharing it.”
I toyed with a loose thread on the couch throw, thinking of Adam, pale and still in his coffin, beaten to death and then… skinned. Why? Who would do that?
Vince and Joel returned then, both red-eyed and quiet. We sat for a few minutes in somber silence before Vince’s natural personality reasserted itself. “We shouldn’t just sit here wallowing. Ayla, you wanna visit an old haunt?”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Where did you have in mind?”
“Silks.” He laughed as my expression moved from suspicion to disgust. “It’s changed a lot since we were kids. Come on, I think we’ve earned a real drink.”
S
ilks had been a nightmare of Dayglo paint and eighties pop when I was last there. Now it was an edgy, chilled-out bar complete with long leather couches and jazz music. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but an improvement on the old look, I mused as Joel handed me a vodka and coke. And then I noticed the singer on stage.
It was the smell I noticed first, the smell of Pack. Then I noticedthe enormous red beehive wig, the towering glittery emerald heels, and the improbably large breasts stuffed into the glittery green spandex dress. I choked on my drink, bewildered laughter bubbling to my lips. “It’s a gay bar? A gay Pack bar?”
Vince clapped me on the shoulder. “Times change, Ayla. After you left town, a lot of Pack members came out, you know? We’re still not exactly popular, but we’re making progress.”
I reflected on that as the drag queen on stage sang her way through Fever, husky voice conjuring images of silk sheets and hot kisses. When I’d left home my parents had made me feel I was betraying the Pack. Like I’d made a deliberate choice to prefer women and thus scorn my duty to have children. But at Adam’s funeral, Mum had seemed different. Softer. We’d love to meet her. I watched the drag queen sashay around the stage, watched the mixed audience of Pack and humans cheer her on.
And of course there was Vince, living openly with Joel in opulent luxury. He’d come out after I left town, telling me later that it was my decision to leave that had given him the courage. Things had changed, I acknowledged. Maybe my self-imposed exile was over.
Once the act came to a close, the audience burst into rapturous applause and the singer slinked off stage to the bar. I had to envy her poise, given the height of her heels. I’d have been flat on my face. To my surprise she came to sit with us, greeting Joel with a flurry of air kisses.
“Sweetie, it’s been too long.” She lit up a cigarette with elegant fingers. Up close it was easier to see the masculine features, disguised by artful makeup. Slightly square jaw, hands a little too large, but strangely beautiful for her blurring of genders.
“Ayla, Shannon, this is Gloriana,” Joel introduced us. “Gloriana, this is an old friend of Vince’s and her partner. They’re in town for the–for Adam.’
“Oh God.” Gloriana took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Awful business. In this town, too, I couldn’t believe it. Call me Glory, darlings,” she added to me and Shannon. Her voice captivated me, low and rich. “Do you know, Joel, I was in here the night it h
appened? I saw all the police swarming around.”
“Was it near here?” Shannon asked.
“Oh yes, practically on our doorstep.” Glory tapped cigarette ash onto the table top. “The smell was horrific. Like nothing I’ve smelled before. It haunts me.” She shivered theatrically. “Sour. Rotten.”
The bar seemed to shrink around me as Glory spoke. Too dark, too hot. I ran my hands through my hair and toyed with my lip ring, trying to distract myself from the image of Adam lying battered and beaten in some stinking alleyway. My wolf whined and pawed inside me, roused by my dread.
“Ayla?” Shannon rested her hand on my knee. “You need some fresh air?”
I nodded gratefully and we made our excuses, hurrying out into the fading afternoon sunshine. I leaned against a wall and closed my eyes, breathing deeply to fight off the sense of vertigo. My wolf still prowled at the edge of my mind, beating against my human self. It was an instinct as old as the moon: feel threatened, out comes the wolf.
Shannon rubbed my fingers, saying nothing but offering comfort nonetheless. We’d been together long enough that words were sometimes superfluous.
As we stood there I became aware a strange odor in the air, a tang that put me in mind of poisoned meat. I inhaled deeply, trying to pinpoint the source of the smell. What had Glory said before I’d flaked out? Sour. Rotten.
I pushed myself away from the wall, breaking free of Shannon’s hold to track the smell. Where exactly had Adam died? How far from Silks was the scene of the crime?
“Ayla?” Shannon hurried along beside me. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s this smell…” I trailed off, veering to the right to head down a side passage next to Silks. Shannon picked up her pace to keep up with me, but didn’t ask any more questions. I wasn’t officially involved in her PI business, but I’d helped her with enough cases that she knew when to trust my werewolf instincts. And right now they were afire, screaming that something was wrong here. That stench…that open grave stench set my wolf on edge. It was unnatural. Anathema.
The passage twisted and wound away from the club, taking us down a dingy alley littered with broken bottles and dried puke. The sun was disappearing behind the high rise buildings in a blur of hot orange light, casting long shadows across dumpsters and rusted fire escapes. I noticed it all without seeing any of it. The smell pulled me on like a magnet, scratching at my senses and pricking at my inner wolf. The quick staccato click of our heels was the only sounds, echoing off the graffiti-tagged bricks.
And now, here, still sealed off with yellow police tape, was the site of Adam’s murder. That wicked word, abomination, scrawled across the wall in dripping red paint. The pavement was still stained with blood, and the overwhelming reek hung over it all. I swallowed hard, my stomach churning. This was where my cousin had died. Maybe he’d been at Silks or some nearby bar. Maybe he’d come back here for a cigarette or a drink when Alpha Humans had found him.
“What is that smell?” Shannon asked. She ducked under the police tape to examine the scene. “Smells like rotting meat or something.” She knelt down, tucking her skirt under her knees carefully and swiped a finger along the ground, then sniffed it. “I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”
“Would it be something the crime scene investigators used? Some chemical, maybe?” I guessed.
She shook her head. “Nothing they use stinks like that.” She stood to peer into a nearby trash can. “Nothing in here.”
Approaching footsteps resounded off the narrow walls, male voices laughing and muttering followed. Under that rotten meat smell I could detect alcohol mixed with the warm, clean scent of pure humans. I tensed, not sure why, a shiver of stress running down my spine as I realized they were coming our way. “Shannon, let’s go.”
She ducked back under the tape. “Trouble?” She reached into her handbag where she always carried a small pistol. She’d never had occasion to use it in her PI work, but a couple of nasty threats from the ex-husband of a former client had persuaded her it was better safe than sorry. The thing made me nervous. If you carried a gun, eventually you used it.
“Let’s just go,” I repeated, taking her hand. As we headed out of the alley, we walked into them, a group of four, big, mean-looking guys. One carried a six-pack of beer; another swung a baseball bat casually. A shot of adrenaline fired through me as my eyes locked with the beer-carrier. I couldn’t stop myself; I snarled, prompted by an immediate, instinctive hatred.
“What’s this then?” he asked. “Couple of ladies out looking for fun?” He grabbed his crotch suggestively and leered at Shannon.
“One lady, one bitch,” one of his friends, a rangy redhead, corrected. “Hear her growling? She’s a wolf.” He spat at my feet.
“A butch bitch,” the ringleader said, looking me over. “Probably just needs a good fuck to bring her round though. Not that bestiality’s
my thing.” He turned his attention to Shannon. “Blondie, though…”
I stepped in front of her. “You touch her, I’ll bite your balls off,”
I growled.
He rolled up his shirt sleeves to reveal a distinctive tattoo on his forearm: the bold insignia of Alpha Humans. Coincidence, to encounter them so close to the site of Adam’s murder? Or had they come to gloat?
“You wanna dance, bitch, let’s do it,” the ringleader challenged me. “One less freak like you in this city is all good.”
They closed around us, the redhead raising his baseball bat. Battle rage sang in my blood, the urge to fight and protect my mate burning inside me. Shannon drew her gun, aiming it at the ringleader with shaking hands.
“Back off,” she ordered, voice shaking far less than her hands. Good actress, my girl. They didn’t buy it though.
“Fuck, a furry lover,” the redhead sneered. “We should kill you both.”
She opened her mouth to retort. She should have just shot him. He moved before she could, swinging his bat with smooth ease to crash into her ribs with a sick crack. Shannon gasped and dropped to the floor, winded, the gun falling from her hands. A red mist descended on me, conscious thought stopping as primal fury took over.
I launched myself at Redhead with a shriek, fingers flexed into claws. We went down in a tangle as I swiped at his eyes and cheeks, desperate to draw blood. He slammed the bat hard into my leg. I howled in pain and grappled for it, squeezing his wrist until I heard bones grind together. He dropped the bat with a cry.
Shouts erupted from his companions; kicks and punches rained down on me, but I barely noticed. I was too intent on ripping Redhead’s throat out, tasting his blood, avenging my mate.
I might have done it if a gun hadn’t gone off over my head. Suddenly the blows stopped and Redhead froze beneath me. The mist cleared a little as I heard a new voice.
“Everybody back off. Put down your weapons.”
I sensed my attackers retreating and looked up from my victim. Two cops, one smelling strongly of Pack, stood over Shannon. The Pack cop held a smoking gun, angled upwards and away from us. The human cop was reaching down to help Shannon to her feet. I snarled softly, warning him off. He got the hint and stepped away.
“Ayla…” Shannon rolled to her knees, clutching her side. “Are you okay?”
It seemed ridiculous that she should be asking me, until I realized blood was dripping down my nose. I wiped it away with my sleeve and glanced down at Redhead. His face was a bleeding mess, long scratches testimony to my attack.
“Shit,” the human cop murmured. “What a fucking mess.”
I
t was a mess, mostly because it took so long to sort out the bullshit from the truth down at the police station. The Alpha Human assholes claimed I’d started it. Four against two are bad odds, but it helped, in a sick way, that Shannon had two broken ribs as a result of Redhead’s attack. Me and the men were charged with affray and released on bail. Shannon went straight to A&E. I was desperate to go with her, but as I was hurrying out of the station, somethi
ng pulled me back.
The smell again; the same bitter stench that hovered over the alley. My stress and concern for Shannon had distracted me briefly, but I couldn’t ignore it now. I spun and inhaled deeply, letting my wolf rise inside me enough to sharpen my senses. I got an odd look from the duty sergeant, but nobody stopped me as I pushed through the doors leading from the reception area to the forbidding ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ Area. Maybe she figured arguing with a werewolf was a bad idea.
I quickly found myself loitering outside the custody suite where the smell seemed strongest. The Pack cop who’d stepped in to save us in the alley, Kinsey from his badge, emerged after a few seconds and did a double take when he saw me there. “Ms Hammond, can I help you?”
“Can’t you smell that?” I demanded, too on edge to mind my manners. “How can you not smell that?”
He shifted his weight, a nervous light in his eyes. “Smell what?”
“That stink! It was all over the alley too–you’re kidding, right? You have to smell it!”
Nerves became anger and he grabbed my arm, wrestled me into the custody suite. It was dimly lit, silent, the cells empty. Suddenly I felt nervous. He had about a foot on me, built like a brick shithouse, and undeniably alpha. My wolf cowered a little as he bared his teeth.
“Word of advice, lady. You’re not going to be in town long, so keep your snout out of what doesn’t concern you. Got it?”
I was so taken aback I nearly submitted meekly until I remembered I was a lone wolf and bared my own teeth in response. “Did
you investigate Adam Thatcher’s death?”
I thought the change of subject might disarm him, but if anything it made him tenser. “Yeah. My partner and I found him, as
