by R. J. Blain
We were Fenerec, him and I together.
“Some may argue running wild is essentially that,” Desmond finally answered. “Has one of your pack run wild?”
“No, one of my pack hasn’t run wild. Have you ever had a talk with just a Fenerec’s wolf?”
Desmond sighed. “I think you need to tell me what you’re doing a miserable job of hinting at, Sanders. I’ve had a long day, and you’re not helping.”
“No luck finding Richard’s Porsche?”
I cocked my head and watched Sanders with interest, wondering why he was baiting Desmond, a far more dominant Fenerec.
Desmond sighed. “No luck.”
“Have you spoken to Richard’s pack?”
“He’s completely cut off from the pack. Frank’s acting as Alpha. They can’t find him anywhere in the pack bonds. They think he cut himself out sometime early this morning. They don’t think he’s dead, but they can’t find him. They’ve never felt anything like it.”
Sanders scratched me under my chin. “So, let’s talk about it. Is Wendy there?”
“I’ll put it on speaker. Wendy and the girls are here.”
“Perfect.”
“Okay, you’re on speaker. What do you have for me?”
“A potential scenario I want to run by you, Desmond. When Richard arrived in Seattle, he got into a dominance fight with you at my pack’s cabin.”
Desmond spat curses. “Yes. Why are you bringing this up?”
“He was out for something like two hours after you took him down, right?”
“Something like that. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Richard’s been separated from his pack for several weeks now. He fought with you at the airport. How long did he hold you and Wendy?”
Desmond sighed and remained silent.
“Four hours maybe?” I recognized Lisa’s voice by the uncertainty in her tone and the way she spoke. Our mate didn’t hesitate, not the way Lisa did.
“Six hours,” Desmond grumbled. “He kept a hold on me until he brought Nicolina home from the hospital.”
“I couldn’t hold you for an hour even with my entire pack helping me—I might be able to do it if I were desperate, but not for long,” Sanders said, shaking his head at me. He ran his finger down the length of my nose. “My pack is larger than Richard’s by at least fifteen wolves. We cover more territory, too. By numbers, we should be the stronger pack. How did Richard react after?”
“He collapsed,” Wendy replied. “Charles went to put him in his place, and he collapsed. Richard’s wolf was exhausted.”
“What did you do?” Sanders asked.
“We kept him awake until he started fighting back against Charles. Maybe eighteen hours in total after he collapsed. He slept for almost two days afterwards.”
“Did anything unusual happen after? Any problems with his wolf?”
Desmond sucked in a breath. “He kept trying to change to his wolf. I had to keep dominating him so he would stay a human. Frank called me whenever he felt Richard starting to change. What do you know about it?”
“I don’t know anything. I’m making guesses—slightly educated ones. You need to call in his pack, Desmond. Bring them all in. I don’t care where they’re at. Get them in the area. I’m opening my territory to them. They know him better than anyone else.”
“Hold on, I’ll conference call in Frank,” Desmond said. I put my ears back.
“Frank,” my Second answered when the call connected.
“Sanders is on the call with us,” Desmond said instead of a greeting. “He might have some ideas about Richard.”
“I’ll take anything,” Frank replied. “What do you have, Sanders?”
“Who is the most submissive in your pack?” Sanders asked.
“Alex,” Frank replied.
I crossed my paws over my eyes.
When my human learned our Second had told Desmond our human brother was in our pack, he was going to be enraged. It was his secret guilt.
The silence stretched on.
“I thought Alex was Richard’s Normal brother,” Desmond’s daughter said, her tone terse with annoyance. I savored her voice and her fire, but my human didn’t respond to our mate’s words.
“He is,” Frank whispered.
“You have a Normal in your pack,” Desmond stated in a tone so neutral I shivered.
Sanders rubbed my ears before saying, “Richard doesn’t like talking about it. I’ve known for a while. Most of the Alphas know. There’s a rule we have when dealing with the Silvered Wolf. It’s the dirty black secret we all know because we value our lives.”
“What rule is that?” Desmond demanded.
Frank sighed. “You don’t touch Alex. Richard will kill anyone who does. He runs completely wild if Alex is threatened. He’s impossible to control if he thinks Alex is in danger. The first thing we do if we think there’s trouble is make sure Alex is safe.”
“Where’s Alex?” Sanders demanded.
“He always heads off for Christmas week. I think he’s in Europe with his parents.”
“With Richard’s parents?” Wendy demanded. “Isn’t Richard fairly old?”
“They’re Fenerec,” Frank replied. “I wouldn’t talk about his parents with him. It’s a sore subject. Look, I’m not sure how old Richard is, but when he took over Yellowknife, he was still a puppy, Desmond. He might have been sixteen or seventeen if I had to make a guess, if that. I guess it’s possible he just looked young, but he wasn’t fully grown. Alex was three. His parents left them alone, abandoning them for months at a time. They globe trotted, and Richard couldn’t stand moving his baby brother around all of the time. From what I understand, he made a run for it with Alex. He hasn’t spoken to his parents since.”
I tried to slink off the couch, but Sanders caught me, held me against his chest, and stroked my fur. He didn’t say anything, but I felt him testing his influence over me. I let him, shivering.
My human hated remembering. I did, too.
We hadn’t wanted Yellowknife’s pack. We had just wanted to protect what was ours.
“Richard was a rogue?” Desmond demanded, his voice cracking.
Frank made a distressed noise. “It was today, okay? He had to take over Yellowknife’s pack today, eighteen years ago. He always shuts down this time of year. He runs wild, heads off in the woods, and runs until he can’t anymore. That’s why I didn’t call you. It happens every year. He always comes back around the New Year like nothing happened, tired and worn out. Sometimes he comes back early. He shows up a day or two after Alex returns from his trips.”
“Frank, you will have Alex in Seattle on the next feasible flight, or I’m going on a hunt. I will find him, I will haul him back, and if it lures Richard out of hiding, I’ll beat the puppy black and blue.”
At the promise of violence in Desmond’s voice and words, I struggled in Sanders’s hold. He clamped his hand over my muzzle. “Why don’t we try calling Alex first and asking nicely, Desmond.”
“I can try calling him,” our mate declared. “Richard’s phone is here.”
“Call on speaker,” Desmond ordered.
I stared at Sanders’s phone, wiggling in my effort to free myself from the Alpha’s hold. Sanders kept his grip firm on me, though he released my muzzle to resume stroking my back. He ducked his head to whisper in my ear, “Relax.”
Sanders cheated. He exerted dominance over me, and without my human to support me, I lost. I went limp in his arms. He settled me on his lap, digging his fingers into the scruff of my neck.
“It’s not like you to call me this time of year,” my brother answered after the second ring. “What do you need?”
The sound of our brother’s voice soothed me, but it didn’t wake my human. I couldn’t even feel him stir, though I was still aware of him deep within. Without the pack bonds, which I couldn’t restore without his help, I couldn’t feel Alex.
As always, Alex wasn’t aware of us. That
was our curse and burden to bear.
“Hi. My name is Nicolina, and my dad wants you to fly to Seattle.”
“Nicolina?” my brother sounded confused.
My human hadn’t told him the names of Desmond’s daughters.
“Nicolina Desmond. Your brother’s staying with us.”
“What’s wrong?” Alex demanded.
“Hello, Alex. It’s Frank.”
“Frank? You’re there?”
Not even the worry in Alex’s voice was enough to jolt my human back to awareness.
“Conference call, Pup. Look, your brother’s cut himself off from the pack completely. I’m acting as the Alpha for now. We can’t find him, his Porsche is gone, and we’re not sure if he’s even alive or not. You need to get your ass to Seattle on the next flight out,” Frank replied.
“If you can’t find a commercial flight, I will hire a charter for you,” Desmond said. “Where are you?”
“Rome,” Alex replied. “Hold on, I’ll see what I can do about a flight. I’ll call you back when I find out more.”
Alex hung up.
Sanders made a thoughtful noise. “If I were a wolf with a distressed human, I would go to the wildest place I could find to escape, somewhere with no lodges, somewhere without the winter tourist attractions. Somewhere like North Cascades National Park. They close down the pass over the winter, so while the park’s accessible, it’s often empty. Vehicle traffic is low. It’d be the perfect place to dump a Porsche without anyone finding it for a long time. A small, fast wolf like Richard could cross a hundred or more miles in a day if he felt like it.”
“Richard is not a small wolf,” Desmond replied.
“Bullshit, Desmond. I have photographic evidence of you cuddling him while he was sleeping.”
Desmond growled. “He typically weighs in at three hundred and fifty pounds, Sanders.”
“He’s got quite the range. Fifteen pounds soaking wet all the way up to three fifty?”
“Closer to forty.”
“A thousand bucks says fifteen pounds,” Sanders countered.
I didn’t need my human to tell me Sanders was trying to profit from me. I sank my teeth into his wrist and bit down hard enough to warn him I could do a lot of damage to him if I wanted to.
“You sound confident, Sanders.” Desmond growled. “If you bring me a fifteen pound Richard, I will give you the Mercedes you keep drooling over.”
“Fifteen pounds soaking wet,” Sanders corrected.
“I don’t care if he’s wet, Sanders. I just want him back.”
Sanders told Desmond he would check the Cascades for my human’s box. He wanted me to guide him to it, but the black trails humans used baffled me. I rode on Sanders’s lap.
My human hadn’t done a very good job of hiding his box. Sanders found it without much difficulty.
After a bit of searching, he also found where my human had stashed the jingly bits needed to make the box move. After making a call to his pack for Sanders’s box to be picked up, he dug through the back of my human’s box for a blanket. Once he bunched it up on the empty seat, he placed me on it.
“You’d kill me later if I let you scratch up the leather,” Sanders said, rubbing my ears.
My human’s box didn’t like Sanders. Sanders complained about it the entire way, but when he made it back to Desmond’s den with it, Desmond rushed out.
“You found the Porsche.”
Sanders grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, pulling me to his lap before he climbed out of my human’s box. “Someone needs to tell Richard he needs to stop driving that Porsche where it snows. It handles like shit when the roads are slick. I found this puppy that might interest you.”
Sanders settled me in the crook of his arm, careful of my hind legs. It still hurt enough he drew a whine out of me. Desmond’s nose flared.
“Where did you find him? With the Porsche?”
“A couple hit him with his car. They brought him down to Earl’s practice, who called me. I couldn’t think of any other puppy in our area with such a pale coat. His color is washing out, though. He might end up pure white if we don’t figure out how to help him. His scent’s fading, too. I asked Chrissy to try her luck with him, but it didn’t do any good.”
“Chrissy’s more submissive than Wendy,” Desmond murmured, staring at me with narrowed eyes.
“He did bite me once, but other than that, he’s been pretty docile. My guess is that he’s trending to submissive.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“He managed to convince Earl and send him into a panic. I know, it’s Richard we’re talking about here, but you know how he is. He might lower his gaze, but he’ll sneak peeks for the fun of it. Not this puppy. He looks down, and he doesn’t even try.”
I flattened my ears, but the Alpha was right.
Without my human constantly fighting for control, without his edge to make me wary, I didn’t need to keep constant vigil, so I hadn’t.
“Why did he bite you?”
“It was around the time you were threatening to beat his precious little brother black and blue.”
“You had him the entire time?” Desmond growled.
“I was hoping the conversation would wake him up. It didn’t. I’ll still take the Mercedes, though.”
“Sanders.”
“Let’s get him inside. Maybe Wendy will have better luck than Chrissy. He might be playing submissive, but he still scared her, and she doesn’t work well when frightened. Wendy might be a little better motivated,” Sanders said.
When Desmond reached for me, Sanders submitted and let the other Fenerec scoop me up. I whined when he touched my hind legs.
“Be careful with him; he’s not healing, either.”
“It’s that bad?” Desmond demanded, tightening his hold on me.
“Considering he couldn’t point me in the direction of his prized Porsche at all, it’s that bad. You might want to rethink your stance on having a puppy around your house, though I’m sure someone in Yellowknife will take him.”
Desmond snarled a curse and carried me to his den.
I was tired of being passed around. Desmond couldn’t keep his hands off of me, and each time he gave me to his mate, he would pace, fidget, and growl until he took me back from her. Both of Desmond’s daughters stared at me with wide eyes.
“Is that really Richard?” our mate demanded, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes narrowing as she glared at me.
My human didn’t even realize we had her full attention, just like we wanted.
“In the same way your sister’s kitten is a lion,” Desmond grumbled.
I didn’t know what a lion was, but the so-called kitten at the other end of the table didn’t look like it’d make interesting or filling prey. Turning my ears back at the insult, I twisted around and nipped Desmond’s hand in rebuke.
He rubbed my ears.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know.” Desmond sighed and pressed his nose to my neck, breathing in my scent. “You’re the one who wanted a puppy, Nicolina. He’s your responsibility.”
While I was tired of being passed around, our mate came around the table willingly enough to take me away from her father. “You’re acting like he’s a dog.”
I approved of her displeasure at Desmond’s behavior, thrusting my nose under her chin and breathing in her scent.
“Does he look like a wolf to you?”
I met Desmond’s wolf-yellow eyes, but under the pressure of his stare, I lowered my head and whined.
“Charles,” Wendy whispered, her rebuke gentle.
Desmond turned his head and broke our eye contact. “I’ll call Frank,” he mumbled.
Our mate sighed, poking the tip of my nose with her finger. I licked her hand, and her expression and scent changed to one of puzzlement. “And you’re really sure this is Richard?”
Maybe she didn’t understand the reasons why, but I preened that she was aware
enough to know something was wrong with my human.
“I’m sure it’s him,” Sanders answered, reaching over to stroke my head. “His scent has weakened, but it was pretty strong when Earl brought him to me.”
Desmond set my human’s phone in the middle of the table. It rang and was answered by our Second.
“Got any news?” Frank demanded.
“News, but it’s bad,” Desmond grumbled. “Sanders found his Porsche and brought home a little white puppy. His scent’s deteriorating. I’d give it until maybe tomorrow afternoon until he’s nothing more than a dog. I need you all here as soon as you can get in the air.”
I bristled at the insult, raising my hackles and voicing a single growl.
Our mate set me on the box the humans were seated around, holding onto the scruff of my neck. “Richard,” she rebuked.
Our Second was silent for a long time. “As soon as we can make arrangements, we’ll be there. Richard took the jet with him to Seattle, so I can’t even pull it out to get a pilot for the damned thing.”
I could smell Desmond’s surprise. “Richard flew in? But his Porsche is here.”
“It’s a pretty big jet, Mr. Desmond. He just drives the Porsche into the cargo bay, ties it down, and off he goes. It’s big enough for the whole pack and then some, assuming he can get us on it. He hasn’t had any luck with it yet. It’s a death box with wings and wheels. He won’t take Alex up in it, and his brother’s been asking for years. Anyway, his Cessna’s here, but it’s a four seater. Jack can fly it, though. I’m not sure anyone other than Richard can handle the jet. Landing it is a nightmare. How he hasn’t crashed it yet, I don’t know. I’m not stupid enough to fly in it.”
“Richard told me he could fly commercial planes when we were at the airport,” our mate’s sister said in a quiet voice.
“His jet isn’t quite that big, but close enough. He’s a master at crash landings because that’s the only way he gets that bird on the ground. I swear he spends more money and time fixing it than he does actually flying it. Costs him a fortune in fuel, too,” Frank replied. “You should see where he lands it in Yellowknife, since it’s so antiquated that the airport won’t let him use their runways. They value their tarmac too much.”
