Wolf Dreams

by Aimee Easterling

  Finally, though, my brain began to focus on the present. From this angle, I could barely make out gray trees topped by the same mountain my voice had bounced off when I howled. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the craggy peak was familiar. Of course, without my glasses, my eyesight was patently unreliable....

  Claw’s head and shoulders interrupted the view. He squatted beside me, his glowering face coming into focus. “And you need to stop acting like you’re unbreakable.” His growl now was even worse than it had been when dealing with Harry, but his touch was gentle as he squatted down to bend my broken arm at the elbow and place it in a makeshift sling.

  Gentle...but impersonal. Claw lifted my torso out of the mud as if I was a child at bath time, carefully steering clear of my breasts and the tender skin beneath my neck.

  To my dismay, my wolf reacted by clawing her way up my throat. She wanted to bite him...and lick him. To apologize...and at the same time show Claw that she could protect herself.

  For a moment, I wasn’t even present. Was lost in the wolf’s internal push and pull.

  “Stop,” Claw demanded, thrusting my beast backward so hard I could feel her sliding down my gullet and into my bowels. “One day four-legged for sanity; one day two-legged for humanity. If you want to survive as a Changed wolf, you need to obey the rules at least for the first few months.”

  The rules...which apparently included not acting upon this overwhelming attraction. Never mind that Claw’s proximity affected me so strongly that it made me forget a broken bone, thick mud, and cold rain falling by the bucketload.

  But I was no longer frozen by alpha commandment, so I was able to clamber to my feet and regain that shred of dignity at least. Plus, as I glanced once more into the distance, I thought of a way to level the scales.

  After all, I was a trained archaeologist...who just happened to spend time with a prehistoric painter. If I wasn’t much mistaken, the painter’s residence was very close to the spot where we now stood.

  So I straightened and donned the invisible cloak of a know-it-all professor. “If you think a cave would be helpful,” I told Claw evenly. “There’s one about three hundred meters to the west.”

  MY PRONOUNCEMENT WASN’T met with quite the awe I’d hoped for. Instead, Harry muttered something too quiet for me to hear, which provoked a snort out of Theta that turned into a strangled growl. She pursed her lips and sidled sideways, just in time to leave Harry the sole recipient of Claw’s heated gaze.

  “Do you have something to add?” Claw demanded, making me feel like a kindergartner being protected by her much older brother.

  “No, alpha,” Harry answered. Then, to me: “Lead the way since you know where we’re going.”

  Harry’s tone was so painfully polite that even Claw couldn’t take offense, but my wolf smelled the faint hint of peppery amusement that turned a simple statement into irony. He might as well have said, “Let’s get this wild-goose chase over with so someone with brains can find a sheltered spot.”

  Punch him, my wolf suggested, clenching my fingers into fists before I could stop her.

  Quiet, I countered. You heard Claw. Two-legged today. Four-legged tomorrow. Plus, we’re not going to start another fight.

  For a moment, we hovered on the knife edge of a power struggle. And that delay apparently lasted too long for shifter patience.

  “Sometime this week would be nice,” Theta said from behind me.

  “Sorry,” I murmured automatically... then wished I hadn’t apologized as the heightened scent of amusement from Harry proved that I’d just lost another point on the pack-hierarchy scale.

  Annoyed with myself, my wolf, Theta, and Harry, I set off too quickly for bare feet and myopic eyes. One stubbed toe later and I was once again forced to pause.

  “If you’re not sure where you’re going...” Harry started.

  But I waved him into silence. Because the fog was lifting, granting a full view of the peak that was nearly identical to the one I’d seen through the eyes of the cave woman.

  “It’s right there,” I said, pointing before us. And, sure enough, the edge of a cliff came into view through the leafless trees.

  Dry shelter. Warmth—if I could find enough dry wood to start a fire. Rest for legs that were starting to tremble with exertion’s aftermath.

  I was almost running as I rounded the corner and stepped under the rock ledge. We’d go back into the cave far enough so Blackburn couldn’t find us. There, the encircling rock would cut down on the post-snow chill....

  For a moment, the lack of frigid rain battering my face made me misunderstand what I was seeing. The landscape had changed in the millennia I’d been away.

  No longer did the ledge open into a broad cave entrance. No longer was there an easy path leading inside it.

  Instead, a jumble of boulders spilled across the spot where the painter had stood watching the pregnant girl transform into her wolf shape. The entrance had collapsed leaving only a simple rock shelter behind.

  “THE TRICK WHEN USING a fire drill,” I informed my audience several minutes later, “is to pay attention to your supplies. Fire board”—I held up a flat slab of wood that had splintered free when a tree landed half under the rock shelter a season or more prior—“bone-dry tinder”—this was lint out of pants’ pockets from the backpacks combined with fibrous scrapings of inner tree bark—“and a strong, straight stick.”

  “Can I go first?” Val’s enthusiasm helped me overlook the fact I couldn’t operate the fire drill one-handed. I’d wanted to save the day a second time, creating fire out of thin air to make up for my truncated cave. But teaching the skill was almost as inspiring, and dragging branches into the shape of a bonfire was still useful work.

  Plus, it was impossible to turn Val down when she’d given me not only a spare outfit that mostly fit, but also my own glasses from the crash site. The world was so clear when I put the latter on that I almost started crying...but that would have been antithetical to the point.

  Instead, I lost myself to the one-handed tugging and stacking, pausing every few moments to adjust Val’s technique. When her palms grew overheated from the friction, she passed the drill on to Theta...at which point I realized the guys were no longer present beneath the rock ledge.

  “You think they’ll find anything worth eating?” Val asked as she helped me break a half-detached limb off the well-placed fallen tree trunk. Ah, so the guys had gone hunting and left the women to build a fire—how prehistoric of them.

  I shrugged to indicate Val’s guess was as good as mine then frowned when Theta snorted. For a moment, I thought the customarily silent woman wouldn’t bother to elaborate, but then she deigned to put her reaction into words.

  “They’re not hunting,” Theta rebutted, still twirling the fire drill like a professional. Beneath her hands, the fire board had just barely started to smoke. “They’re dealing with the fact that Harry has trouble remembering his place...among other things. They’ll be back once the chain of command is hashed out.”

  Wait, Claw and Harry had gone off to finish the fight I’d interrupted? The realization that my intervention had done absolutely nothing to mend pack affairs annoyed me so much that I knocked my broken arm against the stick I was dismantling. Sudden pain brought tears to my eyes.

  Val was less physical about her reaction. “Bastards! If they come home all bruised up and bloody, I’m not giving them any of my granola bar.”

  Then the spark beneath Theta’s twirling stick flared brightly and I rushed forward with the carefully formed ball of tinder. Blowing gently then harder on the man-made mouse nest, I managed to bring the entire bundle alight.

  “Do you think they’ll be okay?” Val murmured as all three of us huddled around the fire a few minutes later, feeding dried grasses then tiny twigs into the growing blaze.

  “Harry always lands on his feet,” Theta answered dryly. “Who he squashes on the way down is another matter.”

  I added a curl of bark to the bo
nfire, topped it off with a couple of medium-sized branches that were dry enough to burn quickly. There were so many undercurrents eddying around this campsite. Perhaps...

  “They’re here!” Val danced out into the rain just as Harry and Claw emerged from the tree line. Harry was limping, but Claw was the one who terrified me. Even though he didn’t appear injured, there was something off about the cast of his face.

  “You idiots!” Val called as she punched first Claw then Harry. The blows had little weight behind them however. She was like a labrador puppy, easily sidetracked by the presence of those she loved.

  Despite his sister’s welcome, Claw was silent until all three of them were safely out of the weather. He glanced at the bonfire and offered me a nod that warmed me more than the fire had.

  Then he dropped the bomb.

  “We found a message at the crash site. Blackburn has the President and is willing to trade him. What he wants in exchange is the wolf statue.”

  Chapter 21

  “So give it to him.”

  This was Theta, crouched beside the packs as she shuffled through their contents. I’d been so focused on fire building—then on figuring out how to work the straps and zips on my borrowed garments one-handed—that I hadn’t asked whether the sculpture had been left where it fell when I shifted into wolf form the first time.

  My relief at seeing the statue materialize in Theta’s hand was overwhelmed by a brand new voice in my head. “Neh.”

  This was the prehistoric painter, the syllable she spat out unfamiliar but its meaning obvious. I could feel her there inside me, her intensity providing certainty that my gut reaction had been right.

  We couldn’t give this statue up.

  “No,” I translated, taking in Claw’s raised eyebrows, Harry’s considering squint, Val’s cocked head, and Theta’s impossible-to-decipher poker face. “We can’t trade the sculpture for the President. We have to think of another way.”

  “Because the leader of the free world is less important than a hunk of rock some old guy created,” Harry suggested, the twist of his lips telling me exactly what he thought of that stance. “Science isn’t everything.”

  “No,” I countered, tamping down my knee-jerk reaction with an effort. “This rock is going to restore the President’s sanity. We need it for the long haul.”

  The cave woman hummed her approval, and abruptly I knew I was on the right track even as I shivered at having two extra voices inside me fighting for air time. “We need to figure out a way to get the President back then use the sculpture to....” There I ran out of steam, not quite sure how to utilize a stone wolf that had already been in contact with Jim Kelter with no apparent effect.

  “To...?” This time Claw was the one who nudged me verbally. I couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was merely humoring me or whether he really did want to hear me out.

  If I’d had solid, scientific data, I would have stood up for myself and shared it verbally. Unfortunately, all I possessed was visions and a disembodied voice, both of which my psychiatrists would have told me were warning signs I should get back on my meds ASAP.

  Claw’s reaction was unlikely to be much more heartening. “You see,” I’d explain, “I turn into a cave woman when I lose my grasp on reality. And she showed me that the sculpture is part of a magical ceremony. Or, okay, so she showed me the first part. The second part we’ll have to make up as we go along.”

  I’d sound like a crazy person. I probably was a crazy person to think the long shot would be effective.

  “Olivia?” Claw prompted as I stood frozen by indecision. And, finally, I shook my head, knowing a truthful explanation would do no good.

  “It’s a gut feeling,” I muttered, not wanting to hear that familiar dismissal. Then, even more quietly: “It’s important that we don’t give the statue away.”

  I’d barely given him anything to go on, but for one moment I thought Claw had heard me. His head cocked, his eyes narrowed in consideration.

  “Our mission,” Harry interrupted.

  Rather than taking him to task this time, Claw nodded, gaze skittering away from mine. “Blackburn has control over Jim Kelter and the deadline is in less than twenty-four hours,” he said firmly. “Between now and then, we need to figure out how to ensure he’ll release the President if we provide the rock.”

  IT WAS AS IF I WAS no longer present, everyone too intent upon figuring out a game plan to pay attention to my lack of further speech.

  “He’ll have explosives,” Harry started.

  “The crash wasn’t an accident,” Claw agreed, picking up the thread where Harry had left it. “We found the remains of a bomb attached to Air Force One’s fuselage and an after-market tracking device on the nose.”

  Theta filled in the blanks as easily as if she could read the two men’s minds. “So Blackburn crashed the plane then knew exactly where to find us. That suggests pre-planning and technical ability.”

  “Did you smell Jim Kelter near the airplane?” Val asked. Unlike their disbelieving reaction to my assertion about the statue, both men shook their heads in instant reply then listened carefully as she spun out guesswork. “So Blackburn went to ground somewhere easy to contain a werewolf. Or he brought along a cage....”

  “No cage.” Theta shook her head. “It’s too far to the nearest road.”

  “He could entice his prey with blood if the President was moon blind,” Harry suggested.

  “Not very far,” Claw countered. “And we haven’t heard or seen him. I agree with Theta—no cage.”

  For half a second, the air once again filled with electricity. So the pack wasn’t as united as the quick flow of ideas made them appear. Then Harry lowered his head into a nod, rebuilding the understanding between them as easily as it had been severed in the first place.

  “So, there’s probably some sort of pit somewhere that Blackburn could trap Jim Kelter in long enough to drop off his ultimatum,” Val suggested. “Unless he drugged him. But that’s pretty dangerous business and requires more supplies.”

  “A hollow tree he could block off the entrance to,” Theta suggested, brainstorming rapidly. “Or a cave.”

  “A cave.” I only realized my wolf had spoken through me when all eyes turned in my direction a second time.

  Yes, that was it. I could feel the rightness of Theta’s suggestion the moment she’d spoken, but I had no more data to back up that knowledge than I’d had to assert the importance of the wolf sculpture to Jim Kelter’s future sanity.

  “A cave?” Claw repeated. But he was impatient now, unwilling to wait for me to work through my internal confusion. So—

  “Just thinking aloud,” I lied. Then I pushed my wolf deeper down into my belly, listening to the werewolves—and Val—come up with an entirely viable strategy that I somehow knew wasn’t going to work.

  THEIR FINAL PLAN MADE perfect sense...if you didn’t believe the wolf sculpture was integral to Jim Kelter’s mental stability. Half the pack would be ready to scout backwards along Blackburn’s trail as soon as he materialized while the other half would remain in the open to facilitate the swap.

  All of which would commence in the morning. For now, the werewolves were shivering down into beast form with Val at their center, everyone huddled together against the cold.

  “You should join us,” Val suggested. But I just shook my head, pulling my borrowed clothing tighter around myself. Leather was good for shedding water, but it wasn’t particularly warm.

  “I’m okay,” I replied, brushing aside minor inconveniences. After all, I could still feel my toes when I wiggled them inside the knee-high boots.

  “Well, if you get cold....” Her jaws cracked with a yawn so intense it stilled her invitation. Then her hand drifted down onto the head of one of the wolves already sleeping beside her. All three of the shifters were so secure in their animal instincts that they’d decided against keeping lookout during the night.

  “Good night,” I answered, closing my own
eyes as a suggestion. I listened to Val’s breath slow to match that of the werewolves, glad of my cold toes since they kept me from joining her in sleep.

  At first, Val tossed and turned on the cold, bare earth beneath us. But then she subsided, drifting into a deeper sleep that I took as my cue to take action no matter how disloyal it seemed.

  Slowly, gingerly, I unzipped the pack I’d been using as a pillow. With agonizing slowness, I rooted around inside.

  We had plenty of gear to paw through. Plastic-coated food packets that crinkled beneath my fingers. Somebody’s ring of house keys that clanked so loudly I paused and held my breath.

  But the slow, steady breathing from the other side of the bonfire continued unabated. Well, that’s not true. Somebody started to snore.

  Aha. The statue settled into my palm as if it had been called there. Leaving the rest of the gear behind, I began tiptoeing out of the cave.

  Which is when the wolf realized what I was doing. My feet stopped moving; my breath caught and refused to start again. The beast had been on board with my plan up until the moment it became apparent we’d be leaving Claw and Val.

  Werewolves need a pack, she growled.

  They didn’t listen to us, so they’re not our pack, I rebutted silently.

  After one long moment of consideration, she ceded the point and gave in.

  Chapter 22

  We walked beneath a nearly full moon that prevented further toe-stubbing, my hand clenching the sculpture so tightly the snout dug into the base of my thumb. The pain was reassuring. I’d made it out of the cave and was on my way.

  The question was—on my way where?

  After all, the obvious entrance to the cavern had collapsed since the time of my vision. It had collapsed...or I’d just imagined the entire thing, creating a landscape out of subconscious memories from a distant hiking trip.