Holiday Wolf Pack

by Bridget Essex

  I blush and look away, but not before I see the naked swell of her breasts again. I should be pretty familiar with her nude body by now, considering I’ve probably seen her naked more than I’ve seen her in clothes, but I still can’t help blushing. God, she’s beautiful. I fumble with the sweater when Paige hands it to me, and then she hands over the jeans and sneakers, too, and I tightly hold them to me in one big bundle.

  “Be ready to run,” murmurs Paige as she stands quickly. She stretches her shoulders, rolling back her muscles as she shakes her head, her eyes gazing down at the floor but not really seeing it, and I think she’s about to change into her wolf.

  But then she does something that, again, I couldn’t have expected.

  Paige glances up at me, and in a single heartbeat, her eyes focus and soften. She reaches out with one quick arm, and she wraps it around my middle, her warm skin radiating right through the fabric of my coat and pajamas. She draws me to her gently, but with subtle strength, and then the length of her body is pressed against mine.

  And, in the middle of the animal shelter that we broke into, in the middle of a moment that she probably shouldn’t waste...Paige gazes down at me with soft blue eyes, eyes that pin me to the spot as she slowly lowers her face to mine. I tilt my chin up, and that’s all it takes, because in the next instant, she’s pressing her mouth against my own.

  A rush of adrenaline courses through me, my body responding in pure instinct, and I begin to open up, to relax in this embrace. I begin to kiss her back--fiercely. Maybe it’s the situation, the craziness of the night, how attractive and good-hearted she is. I don’t know--maybe it’s a combination of all those things. But I find, in that moment, that I’ve never really wanted anyone more than her.

  But this night isn’t over yet. And this kiss, while (hopefully?) being a sign of things that might possibly come...we could still utterly fail at this rescue attempt. Perhaps Paige won’t be able to get her sister to wake up. Perhaps someone will come and find us, broken into an animal shelter, and I’m going to be spending my Christmas day in jail.

  But, right now, in this moment, with her mouth pressed tightly to mine, her warmth radiating into me, her naked body tightly held against my own, everything else fades away. Just for a moment.

  This kiss makes me breathless, but I don’t care. I wrap my arms around her neck, hold her as close to me as I can. We’re wrapped together, merging somehow, and I could never have predicted this moment or this night. But I’m so, so glad--no matter what happens--that I’m experiencing it.

  Her mouth is soft and hot, the warmth of her making me shiver against her. And when Paige breaks away from me, when she locks her brilliant blue gaze with my own, I’m utterly gratified to see that she’s just as breathless as I am.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she tells me softly, quietly, and then she presses her lips against my forehead. She steps away from me, only holding tightly to my hands now, before she lets go of them, too. And then she’s stepping into the pen that holds her sister, and she’s arching forward like a dancer would.

  And I watch as the woman I was just kissing passionately becomes something else entirely.

  Paige stands, a wolf, in the center of the pen. Her noble head is lifted toward me, and her great blue eyes stare at mine unblinkingly. I nod once to her and turn, racing back to the front of the building to make certain that we’re alone. That, if Paige’s plan actually works, if she’s capable of getting her sister to shake off the effects of the sedation, that the way will be clear for the two wolves to bolt out into the storm of a Christmas morning.

  But I gulp down air as I get to the front of the building, because that’s exactly what it is: it’s Christmas morning. Even though the storm is still billowing the snow in sheets of white down around me, I can see clearly that the sky is getting brighter, and that--somewhere--the sun is beginning to peak up over the edge of the horizon and lightening the clouds.

  It is much, much later than I thought. As I stare up at the brightening sky, holding my coat close around myself, my heartbeat roaring through me, I turn to head back into the building, to go tell Paige that she’s got to hurry, that we’re definitely running out of time.

  But I stop dead in my tracks.

  Because coming down the sidewalk toward the shelter is a person.

  My heart leaps up in my throat, thundering inside of me, but I try to remain as calm as I can. There’s absolutely no reason for me to think that this person is headed toward the animal shelter, though my more logical side is asking why else would anyone be out, walking this block, so early on Christmas morning other than to get to the animal shelter and take care of the animals?

  I don’t really have a good answer for that. I shut the front metal door to only a crack and peer through it, willing with every fiber of my being for this person to pass by the turn down to the animal shelter, and to just keep walking down the sidewalk, away from the building.

  But that’s not what happens.

  The person turns down the path toward the animal shelter, her shoulders up against the cold (I can make out, in growing light, that it’s a woman, now--she’s wearing a long black jacket that shows off her curves), her long, black hair flowing behind her...

  And that’s when I catch my breath.

  Oh, God--you’ve got to be kidding me.

  The woman walking toward the animal shelter?

  She’s unmistakable. I’d recognize that walk, that jacket, that woman anywhere.

  It’s Angie.

  I stare, dumbfounded, my jaw practically on the floor as my mind races. I remember her telling me that it was an “extremely unfair” schedule she’d been given for her community service work for Christmas week, but she’d started talking about something else, and I’d never gotten her to clarify. It would make sense that most people want to remain in their beds on Christmas morning. Why not get the woman who has to do it to come in and feed the animals?

  Oh, God, it’s really her.

  I have a few seconds to decide what, exactly it is I’m going to do, and then those few seconds run out as I shut the door as quietly as I can and race back down the hallway, toward the first dog room.

  I hear a key being inserted into the lock as I run through the swinging doors into the adoptable dog room, skidding on the damp linoleum as I make a bee-line for the next set of doors. Will she be able to tell that the front door wasn’t locked when she turns the key? Will she be able to tell with all the melted snow on the floor that someone’s been in here recently?

  I skid through the second set of double doors into the second dog room. I’ve gotten some of the dogs excited--or maybe it’s that they know the person who’s going to feed them has just arrived--because there are several dogs now standing, beginning to whine and bark energetically. I race toward the set of double doors in the back, toward the unadoptable dog room, but when I peer through those doors, pushing them open only a little, all I see is that Paige is standing next to Anna, peering down at her with her hackles up.

  Both women are still in their wolf forms. And Anna hasn’t moved an inch.

  “Paige!” I hiss desperately into the dark room. “Paige, we have company!”

  The standing wolf turns and looks back at me with wide eyes, then she noses Anna’s slumped form a little harder, her hackles up, and her sharp teeth exposed.

  I let the door shut behind me, and I put my back to that third set of doors as I hear footsteps loud and clear, coming closer.

  There’s nowhere for me to run. I take a deep breath, my mind racing.

  And that’s when Angie comes through the doors.

  She flicks the lights on, and then we’re staring at one another, across a very loud room full of barking dogs. She looks shocked, her brown eyes wide, her mouth open in a little “o” of astonishment as she takes in the fact that I’m here. And that I really shouldn’t be here.

  Angie snaps out of it. “Shut up!” she shouts sharply at the loud dogs who are making an even great
er racket now. Surprisingly, the dogs all listen, save for a little Yorkie in the corner, who keeps whining without even a pause.

  “Mandy...what the hell?” she asks. Her long, black winter coat is dripping melted snow on the linoleum, her black hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she looks tired. She looks like she didn’t sleep at all this past evening, actually.

  I stare at her in shock, too. I didn’t want to see her so soon...especially after what just transpired last night.

  And after what just transpired just a couple of moments ago, when I kissed a woman I’d just met...but who, in the span of a few short hours, had become someone I trusted deeply.

  An honor that Angie never earned.

  “What are you doing here?” asks Angie then, her voice sharp. She straightens a little, and her trademark smug smile steals across her face as she shoves her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets, curling her shoulders toward me. “Did you go to all this trouble to get back together with me?” she asks, her head to the side. I know she’s trying to make it sound smug, condescending...

  But it doesn’t sound like that at all.

  Her voice actually breaks at the end.

  I stare at her, and my heart begins to hurt.

  “No,” I tell her quietly, even though I’m still angry at her, even though I’m still frustrated at how she treated me, and how she treated our relationship, the disregard she showed me and how utterly uncaring she was.

  But I heard the hope and hurt in her voice just now.

  I heard the desperation.

  And I know she heard them, too.

  “Look,” says Angie then, taking one step forward. She holds her hand out to me, but then she drops it. She stands still for a long, awkward moment, and finally runs that hand over her head, sighing out in frustration.

  I honestly don’t know why she doesn’t think it’s stranger that I’m in the animal shelter at a very odd hour on Christmas morning. Maybe she does actually believe that I’ve arranged all of this so that I can get back together with her. I mean, Angie’s narcissistic--of course she’d think that.

  The silence stretches out awkwardly, but when I take a step forward, putting the doors purposefully behind me (and hoping that Paige or Anna don’t make much noise, or that Angie doesn’t go into the room, or...really, I’m hoping for a lot of stuff in this moment), she clears her throat, tries again. “Look,” she tells me, putting both of her hands out in front of her in a gesture of surrender. “I...I think I made a mistake. Well,” she says stiffly, clearing her throat. “I think I made a lot of mistakes.”

  I stare at her, my eyes wide. I never thought I’d hear those words out of her mouth ever.

  But what she says next utterly ruins the gesture.

  “I think it was a mistake to break up with you,” she tells me, drawing herself to her full height and lifting her chin, her eyes flashing almost triumphantly. “And I’ll take you back,” she says, letting the words trail off. “If you want.”

  I blink. And then, because that’s not really what I thought she was going to say, and because I didn’t think this night (and now morning) could get any stranger, and then it did...I actually laugh out loud.

  It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that we ever got together in the first place, two utterly incompatible people, and it’s utterly ridiculous that we tried to make it work for as long as we did.

  And, of course, it’s utterly ridiculous that there’s a werewolf in the room behind me, and that this plan very well might fall apart right now.

  But I can’t stay quiet. Not anymore.

  “No, Angie,” I tell her then, wiping a tear from my eye (whether a real tear, or a tear from laughter, it’s impossible to tell) as I shake my head and chuckle weakly. “I’m the one who broke up with you--not that it really matters,” I tell her, holding up my hand. She’s about to say something, but she stops then, closing her mouth in a thin, hard line. “It was very obvious,” I tell her, “from the very beginning that we weren’t compatible, and it’s nice that we both tried. But we have to accept that it’s over, and it’s obviously for the best. You’ll find some nice woman,” I promise her, because I utterly believe it--I’m beginning to believe again that there’s someone out there for everyone, and that even Angie will find the woman of her dreams someday. “You’ll find a lovely woman, and you’re going to fall in love with her, and it’s going to be wonderful,” I amend. “But that woman won’t be me.”

  I walk forward, and then I’m hugging her tightly, just like we used to--but there’s nothing but affection in that hug, now. No more regrets. No more wishing that she would be different. Angie is Angie, and there’s no reason that she should change for anyone.

  Because there’s a woman out there who will love Angie for herself. Yes, Angie’s selfish and uncaring and she doesn’t pay attention to a word I say.

  But maybe there’s a woman out there who she will pay attention to.

  And that’s the only important thing.

  “Good luck, Angie,” I tell her brightly, feeling the weight of so many months of trying to make something fit that just didn’t falling away from the both of us.

  And then, behind us, in the unadoptable room, comes a howl.

  The hair on the back of my neck stands up, because this is no ordinary howl of a dog who’s hungry for his breakfast. This is, very obviously, the howl of a wolf, the cadence deep and lovely and lonely. It sounds heartbreaking and deeply beautiful all at once, and I can feel, in that moment, my own heart stop beating.

  As that one lone wolf howls, all of the other dogs in the facility fall completely silent, as if they’re listening, reflecting on what that sound means, listening to the music of it.

  And then, joining that wolf howl...comes one other.

  I turn, wide-eyed, as I hear those two howls merge together. Impossibly, it almost sounds like the two howls--so utterly distinct, the both of them--are flowing together into a harmony. The first howl is low and deep and clear. This second howl sounds high and bright, and--together--the two make beautiful music.

  But that music is ruined by the sound of a scuffle, of claws scraping violently against concrete. I hear paws thundering against linoleum, and then the two doors bang open behind me, and two gray blurs fly past Angie and I. They move so quickly that it’s almost impossible to make out exactly what they are.

  But I know what they are. And my heart rises, full of hope and this sheer, incandescent joy.

  There are two tall gray wolves bolting out of the animal shelter, making a beeline toward freedom. Their sleek forms move fluidly through the animal shelter, their noses pointed toward the exit.

  Somehow, impossibly, Paige was able to get Anna up and moving.

  And now they’re out. They’re going to make it.

  “What’s happening here?” asks Angie loudly, blustering and practically speechless she’s so surprised. I hug her tightly once more, because for all I know this is the last time we’re ever going to see each other (and that’s probably a very good thing).

  “I think that second wolf just escaped,” I tell her with a forced grimace. “But don’t worry, I’ll help you find her!” I say gallantly. And then I’m trotting past her, slipping a little on the wet linoleum floor in my snow boots, but then running after the two wolves, through the rooms, and out the front door.

  There are two sets of wolf tracks stretching out into the blowing snow, one set of paw prints larger than the other (though, admittedly, both tracks are huge). But the snow is blowing, and more is coming down every second, and the prints are almost immediately becoming softer-edged as the snow begins to bury them.

  Angie bursts out of the animal shelter, skidding to a halt behind me as she stares in shock at the sets of tracks in the snow. She sinks back on her heels, narrowing her eyes as she shakes her head and sighs in frustration.

  I tense up, waiting for her to say something. She could absolutely call the police right now, tell them that when she arrived I was here, and t
hen the wolf got out...if the police arrive, they’ll see the set of keys on the floor by the pen that they were keeping Anna in. My fingerprints are all over them, and with my being here, they’ll know it was me and charges will be pressed.

  I take a deep breath and brace myself.

  “Well,” says Angie, tilting her head. She casts me an imperious glance, and then she smiles, but just a little. “I’ll just say it was like this when I got here,” she tells me with a shrug. “I mean, obviously the wolf was already gone. Pretty strange, if you ask me.

  It’s a very Angie thing to say, and there’s no reason for me to believe that she’s trying to get me off the hook, or that she even thinks I’m on the hook (she did seem to believe that I’d shown up here to try to get back together with her). But whatever Angie is thinking, I’ll never know...because she turns and goes back inside to do the rest of her court mandated work, shutting the door solidly behind her.

  We didn’t say goodbye to each other. But then, that’s just as well.

  I wonder briefly if the animal shelter will blame Angie for the break-in, but then it’s probably obvious that whatever Paige did to the door out back was something that probably doesn’t look human-made.

  I...think we’re all safe.

  I hold tightly to the sweater and jeans and sneakers Paige had been wearing, and I trudge away from the animal shelter’s building, out into the cold and the snow again. In the east, the sky is beginning to lighten more and more as Christmas officially begins.

  Somewhere not that distant, I hear church bells begin to ring, and if I was inside, I would think this was a very picturesque moment. But I’m not inside--I’m outside, and I feel like I’m freezing to death. The cold around me is so absolute, and the snow blows so sharply, stinging my eyes, that it’s difficult to see, but even with the cold and the adrenaline still coursing through me from what I’ve just been through, I turn down the sidewalk (or, at least, I assume the sidewalk is here under all this snow), and I follow the tracks down the street with my heart light.