by Robin Roseau
I kept my eyes closed and stood there as she stepped away, and a moment later, the door closed behind her.
Then I slumped, and the tears began.
* * * *
I was partially cried out by the time there was a knock at the door, and a moment later it opened. Eric stepped in with a bag. By then, I was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with my knees drawn up. I didn't really look at him, and I didn't get up.
He set the bag down. "Books," he said. "And there's a water bottle and some food."
"Thank you."
"I'll bring tissues and a towel."
"Thank you."
He was gone a minute before he returned, setting them on the floor next to the bag.
"Our alpha is fair," he said. "She'll protect the pack, but she's fair."
I looked up at him.
"Your chances with another pack would be... well, not good. I don't know what they discussed, but she's fair."
I nodded. "Thank you. And thank Elisabeth for the books."
"Actually, I'll thank Nora. They're hers." He bent over and picked one up. "They're kind of smutty. She leaves them around the alphas' house for the rest of us to read. I liked this one." He turned the book towards me, and I recognized one of my favorite lesbian authors.
"You read lesfic?" I asked.
"Hey, they're good stories," he said. "Sometimes the sex is hot." He shrugged. "If someone is a homophobe, he doesn't belong in this pack. Nora's not a lesbian though. She says she's pansexual." He smiled. "We went out a few times, just casual, but she's a little young."
I tried to judge his age. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-four," he replied.
"You look younger."
"We age, but not as fast as humans," he replied. "Well, that's not true. We mature faster, but then it all slows down in our twenties, if that makes sense."
I nodded. "Should you be telling me?"
"No one said I couldn't talk to you," he replied. "Elisabeth said to get anything you need. I thought perhaps you could use a little conversation."
"Would you get in trouble if you sat with me?"
"No." He lowered himself down the opposite wall, facing me. "But you should know. The door out of the basement is locked, and I'm a lot faster than you are, anyway."
"I wouldn't have come if I had intended to run," I said. "But thank you for telling me." I paused. "What's it like?"
"Being a wolf?"
"Yeah."
"It's what I've always known," he replied. "There are a few things that would really stand out, but I don't know if I could explain them to a human." He paused. "The smells. I know your smell is almost dead, compared to mine, and that's in this form. As a wolf, I can smell everything. Even like this, I can smell far, far better than you can. I can tell you're scared. I can smell that you and Elisabeth hugged. I can tell you're wearing Scarlett's clothes."
"Her scent lingers through a wash?"
"A little, but I'd have to sniff a lot closer. No. Her dad does the laundry in that house, and he keeps buying detergent with scent. No wolf would ever do that."
"You can smell the detergent?"
"You can, too, when it comes out of the wash. But for you, it fades. Not to us."
"Is it overpowering?"
"No. It's not like a good whiff of pepper. It's just there, along with all the other smells." He paused. "If you and Elisabeth keep seeing each other, you should change everything you do to scentless. She'll prefer your natural scent in everything. It can be hard to find scentless soap, but we can help you."
"Thank you. What else can you smell?"
"The books. The food. The exercise matt you're sitting on. I can smell that Elisabeth was in here. There is still the lingering scent from the last time this room was painted, but it's really subtle."
"When was it painted?"
"Last year, I think. If the room got more air, I couldn't smell it."
"Wow."
"I can smell your worry, and I could smell Elisabeth's." He paused. "Grief smells different. She smelled worried, but she wasn't grieving. Angel was, but it turned to hope when Elisabeth let her go in with her."
"Really?"
He nodded.
"Outside, oh my god, the smells outside. All the trees and bushes and hundreds of kinds of flowers. And all of us have our own scent, too, each of us going here and there. We play games in the woods, like hide and seek, and it can get pretty crazy by the third or fourth game, with tracks on top of tracks, trying to figure out which one is strongest."
"It sounds amazing." I shook my head. "I keep using that word."
"It's appropriate. Next, the power. Look up." I looked up at the ceiling far above me. "Twelve feet," he said. "I can touch it."
"Holy shit."
"It's hard around humans. We have to hide it. I went out with a few, but I couldn't do it. I was so afraid I would hurt her. I don't know how Lara does it with Michaela, or some of the others with their human mates."
"Elisabeth has been very gentle. She's amazing."
"Yeah." He looked away.
"A crush?"
"Yeah. But it wouldn't work. I'm too dominant."
"What does that mean?"
"I like to be the strong one in the relationship."
"That's sort of old fashioned, Eric."
"Well, Elisabeth is really, really, really dominant."
"She'd wear the pants?"
"It's not gender-based, but yeah. Don't put it that way, though." He paused. "Most of the people living here are very dominant, but somehow they make it work."
"So, Nora?"
"She's pretty cute," he said. "Do you know who she is?" I shook my head. He paused. "Do you know who lives with the alphas?"
"I presume their daughters. After that, no."
"Okay. I didn't know if you knew they had a couple of girls. Nora is their nanny."
"She's a wolf?"
"Yeah, and she's a lot of fun. I think I was just a lark. That woman could wrap anyone around her finger. I don't know whom she's seeing lately. She'll settle down with someone someday, and whoever it is won't see it coming."
I laughed.
"Boys?"
"Me? No. All girls. Women. You know what I mean."
"So, the power?"
"Yeah. I'm six-two and weigh two-thirty."
"That's a big man," I said.
"I can bench press twelve hundred."
"That sounds like a lot."
"Half a small car."
"I suppose a female isn't as strong?"
"Don't let Lara hear you say that. She'll kick my ass to prove you wrong."
"Yeah, well, Elisabeth said Michaela kicks her ass."
Eric smiled. "With her knives yes. We're pretty proud of Michaela. So, run fast, jump far, lift cars... And I can be gentle, you know, but during the heat of things, well... A guy gets worked up. It's hard to concentrate on: Don't hurt her. Don't hurt her. Don't hurt her. You know, while you're also concentrating on everything else."
"Right," I said.
"It's maybe easier for a woman. According to Nora's books, you women take turns."
I laughed. "Yeah, not always, but yeah."
"If I were submissive, it might be easier. She could be on top."
"I think perhaps this conversation is getting a little too..."
"Right," he said with a laugh. "And then just being in fur. I can't describe that. The shift is painful. It takes three or four minutes for me."
"I saw Michaela shift in an instant."
"That's Michaela," he said.
"And I have a video. Do you know about that?"
"Yeah. You shouldn't have that. Elisabeth isn't going to live that down."
"Did I get her into trouble?"
"We're not supposed to get caught. For the head enforcer to get caught, well, that's downright embarrassing."
"Oh god. I'm so sorry."
He grinned. "She can handle it. She gives as good as she gets."
"In my video, it was instant, like Michaela."
"I can't talk about that," he said. I nodded. "So, for me the shift is painful, and it is for most wolves. Although not as bad as in the movies, where they scream for a half hour. And it's so worth it. You finish shifting, and the pain fades. You get up, and you sort of shake your fur out, fluff it up. You know?"
"Maybe."
"And stretch. On god, I love to stretch. And if I could smell everything before, I can smell everything-everything as a wolf. And those big ears." He held his hands up and rotated them around like radar dishes. "Really, really cold water isn't any fun, but I love to go for a run in the winter, when the air is crisp, and you can run and run and run and not get too hot."
He faded away for a moment then said, "That's the best part. Running. Leaping. And we play. Humans get so uptight as adults. They forget to play. Well, we play. We play all the time. Even the alphas play, and Elisabeth. You should see them. It can be hard for the humans who join us. They think they should be so serious, that they have to work so hard. But you know? If they just play. It doesn't matter that they aren't as fast. You're never going to beat Elisabeth in anything, except possibly an argument. But she'll love if you just play."
"Really?"
He nodded. "Did you race her kayaking?"
"No. I raced Michaela. She gave me a fifty yard head start and I almost won."
"How long a race?"
"I was dead tired at the end. Maybe four hundred yards."
Eric laughed. "If you almost won, then it's because she was trying to hide what she could do."
"Oh," I said in a small voice.
"No, don't see it like that. I bet it meant a lot that you raced her. And if you ask her in the future, it will really mean a lot, now that you know about her."
"But she's not a wolf."
"She's as strong as all but the strongest men. You raced someone with the strength of a human man my size but a body her size."
"Oh my god, we went so slowly. That first day, they were all waiting for me, weren't they?"
"They didn't mind," he said. "I heard it was a nice day on the water. The fox and Angel each got a fish. Everyone got some exercise. If they want exercise, they'll get some. Or you can always ask Elisabeth to tow you."
I laughed. "I'd be embarrassed."
"Naw, don't be. Sometimes Michaela asks for a tow. Not often. She's amazingly stubborn."
"Is that why Michaela suggested I paddle tandem with Elisabeth after that?"
"Probably," Eric replied.
I thought about it all for a few minutes. "Elisabeth is your boss?"
"Yeah. It's not like a human boss, though. And Lara and Michaela are the alphas. I also answer to whoever is in charge of whatever detail I'm on. But that still puts me ahead of almost everyone else in the pack."
"So everyone does what you say?"
"Well, they would, but we don't do that, except for security, or if they're screwing up and we have to bash heads."
"Does that happen?"
"Wolves can be really stupid. Yeah. It's the crappy part of the job, showing up at someone's house and asking him: WTF? You're selling pot? What is the matter with you? If it's a first offense, we have to beat the crap out of him. I hate that. We get that shit about once a year."
"I thought there were only twenty or thirty people in the pack."
"Oh no. That's how many live here, but we cover all of Wisconsin. Werewolves are everywhere, ma'am. Everywhere. You've met some before, I almost promise."
"Are they all as big as you?"
"I'm big, even for a werewolf. You met Gia. She's average for a female."
"She's not small."
"No, but she's only about five-eight and one-fifty. An average male is five-eleven and built, but not huge you know? You wouldn't look at him and think, 'linebacker'. Bouncer maybe."
I nodded. "You're smaller than a linebacker."
"Yeah, but I can kick that linebacker's ass."
I laughed.
"Bouncer is a good job for a lot of wolves. We make bad cops though."
"Why?"
"Don't freak out." Then in his throat, he began to growl, and it might have been the scariest thing I'd ever heard. He did it for about five seconds, and by the end, I was pushing myself back into the wall, trying to get further away from him.
"Sorry," he said. "But put us in a stressful situation, and we tend to do that."
It took me a minute to calm down.
"There's water in the bag," He said. He was said calmly, as if he hadn't just scared the shit out of me a few seconds ago. "Sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you that badly."
"You did that casually," I said. I rolled my way over to the bag and found a bottle of water. "I can't imagine if you were really angry with me."
"You asked earlier about being dominant. Imagine your reaction if you and Elisabeth were having a fight, and she started making that noise, and you know she's angry at you, and you're angry."
"I'd piss my pants. I know I would."
"It would end the fight," he said. "She'd immediately turn protective, but she would also assume she had just won." He paused. "You need to think about something. A few somethings. First, watch how both of them are with Michaela. If you have a future with Elisabeth, then that's your future. Protected."
"A security detail?"
"I don't know. You wouldn't be the alpha's mate. But you also can't protect yourself. Yeah, probably. I don't know. It's not my decision."
I nodded.
"But protected. She won't let you do anything she thinks is dangerous. She won't let you live in that apartment, for instance. No way."
I sighed. "She already told me that."
"I don't mean to be rude, but that place sucks. You can do better."
"I can't afford better."
"Yeah, well," he said. "Do you think there is any chance in the world she's going to let that matter?"
I laughed. "No."
"Okay, the other thing is this. She'll let you argue with her. You can argue until you're blue in the face. You might even win a lot of the arguments. But if she ever, EVER growls at you, you will lower your eyes and do whatever the hell you're told. And if you can't do that, then you have no business with a dominant wolf like Elisabeth."
I looked at the floor between us for a while. Eric didn't say anything while I thought about it. Finally I raised my eyes. "She's worth it."
He smiled. "You need to ask yourself something else. For that relationship to work, it can't be just that she's worth it. You have to like her dominance. It has to feel good. It has to feel good that she protects you. It has to feel good that she takes care of you. And it has to feel good to obey her. If not, find someone else, or eventually you'll grow to resent it."
"I don't know, Eric," I said. "I haven't even seen her wolf yet. I know she can reduce me to a quivering puddle. She already has."
"I know. We heard."
I cocked my head. "What do you mean, you heard."
"There's no video in your bathroom, but we have audio of whatever she did to you in the shower."
"Oh my god!" I said. "Oh my god!" I began blushing furiously. "Please no video. Please no video."
Eric laughed. "We're pretty casual about things like that."
I buried my face for a while. Eric chuckled a moment longer.
"Ma'am. Ms. Young. May I call you Zoe?"
"After hearing my screaming orgasm, I wish you would."
He chuckled again. "I think that's a pretty small issue, in the face of everything else."
"I suppose it is," I agreed. "But it's so embarrassing."
"Well, you'll have to get over that. You'll hear Michaela and Lara. Lara makes her scream."
"What?" I looked up.
"Oh yeah. Lara makes Michaela scream all sorts of things. Usually just Lara's name, but sometimes she makes her promise stuff. She'll obey. She's hers. Stuff like that. Top of her lungs, over and over."
"I'd be mortified."
&nb
sp; He just grinned.
"Elisabeth will turn me into an screaming exhibitionist?"
"Yep."
"We'll be talking."
"She'll growl and you'll scream whatever she wants you to scream."
I sighed.
"You started to say you haven't seen her wolf."
"Yeah, right. Um. She's magnificent, Eric. I saw Portia and Karen. Portia let me pet her."
"Portia's amazing," Eric said.
"But dominant?"
"Big time. If I could enjoy being submissive, I'd roll over for her. You're wondering about Elisabeth's wolf?"
"Yeah."
"Better than Portia."
I closed my eyes, trying to imagine.
When I opened, Eric was watching me.
"This all sounds complicated. How do you form relationships if everyone is so dominant?"
"We're enforcers, by definition some of the most dominant wolves in the pack. It's not as bad when one of them isn't so dominant. Scarlett isn't at all submissive, but she isn't super-dominant, either, so she and Angel do really well."
I smiled. "A lot of lesbian werewolves."
"There weren't any until Lara brought Michaela home. Then suddenly the gay juices started flowing everywhere."
I laughed.
"You won't find such open relationships in that many packs," he said. "But when your alphas are a pair of females, and one a fox besides, it sort of sets a tone."
"So, are their daughters a mix of fox and wolf?"
"No. They're technically Lara's. Wait until you see them. They're absolutely adorable."
"I can't wait."
Out in the hallway, I heard the sound of a door. Eric didn't even scramble to his feet. A moment later, Elisabeth stood in the doorway. She took in the situation.
"We were talking," I said.
"That's fine," she replied.
I climbed to my feet as she moved into the cell, as did Eric. "I'll step outside," he said, and he closed the door behind himself.
I turned to face Elisabeth.
"Is there a judgment?"
"We want the contents of the bank box, and we also are taking everything from your apartment. We're going through it all with a fine tooth comb."
"You won't find anything I haven't already told you about."
"I don't expect we will," she said. "We have to be sure."
I nodded. "I'll do whatever you say."
"Good."
