She was adamant and Claw was uninterested. Unwilling to lose myself in the hamster-wheel of human rumination, I released control over my body and allowed my inner animal to take the lead.
THE WOLF STOLE COMMAND so thoroughly that I checked out for several long minutes. Then, waking, I failed to cringe or argue when she followed Theta in a ground-eating hunt.
The sky was as blue as I’d ever seen it, Adena soaring above our heads like a third member of our pack. Theta and I caught the scent of a rabbit together, split apart and raced our prey until she snapped its neck.
Adena winged down to meet us as we gorged on the furry tidbit. The taste was rich and delicious, but the sight of blood knocked me out of the beauty of the day. Unwilling to succumb to recent memory, I burrowed down deeper, rocking dreamlike within the wolf’s belly while letting my animal half have her head.
I woke some time later when Harry joined us, all bristling fur and snapping jaws that never quite made contact with our skin. My wolf growled in answer, sprang forward...only to be rebuffed by Theta’s timely intervention.
“What are you doing here?” my defender demanded, rising to humanity between our posturing lupine selves. Harry shook his ruff once before shifting to join her. My own wolf in contrast, refused to release me despite the humans now speaking above our head.
“Claw wants to wait another day before calling a helicopter,” Harry answered. “We’re running out of granola bars. I thought I’d help you catch a deer.”
“Not sure she’s ready,” Theta said, eying me. “You, of all people, should understand being moon blind.”
Harry made a sound halfway between a laugh and a strangled expletive. But my wolf was uninterested in their banter. She’d spent decades dreaming of hunting, so it was no wonder her howls of excitement drew fur forms out of Harry and Theta both.
Without further discussion, all three of us loped off westward. And this time, my wolf refused to let me disconnect from the upcoming brutality. Instead, she kept me there inside her, sharing her joy of coordinating with a wolf pack. Together, we relaxed into the satisfaction of our pack bond, warmed as much by our companions’ presence as by the bliss of sun on fur and skin.
Eventually, her ploy worked. I snorted up sunshine, reveling in lupine hearing that turned a simple bird song into an orchestral symphony. Theta and Harry fed off our excitement until we weren’t really hunting, merely enjoying the exuberance of a wolf pack’s run.
Hunger prodding us, we circled back around in search of prey close to the den site as the sun began to fall toward dusk. Spreading out across several hundred feet in the forest, we couldn’t see each other any longer. Still, some sixth sense inside me noted exactly where each companion was.
Sandwiched in the middle, my trajectory was guided by the push and pull of Harry and Theta. So I wouldn’t have expected to be the one catching the spore trail...until it turned out I was.
Black pellets steamed before me. The scent of deer urine flooded the air. Raising my chin, I howled out warning. Then I broke into a run.
This time when we startled three does grazing on a patch of dried grasses beside a stream bank, my wolf and I were the ones to pull the animal down. Teeth biting, neck snapping, blood spurting. The success went to our head.
Rabbit had been tasty, but venison fed vitality directly into our veins. All three of us gorged then gnawed off legs to drag back to the den site.
There, our welcome was that of returning heroes. Even Val—with no wolf inside her—seemed to understand the rite of passage presented by my first kill. The humans laughed and ate and chattered while the wolves tussled and took advantage of our thicker lupine skin.
The only flaw in my enjoyment was Claw, who maintained a careful distance that might as well have been physically painted on the ground. Every time I padded closer, he took a step back or turned away, refusing to so much as meet my eyes.
Still, pack was enough in that moment. Ignoring the slight, I joined the pile of furry noses and tails, nestling wholeheartedly in their midst. Slithering closer to Val as the chill of the night deepened, I didn’t even try to distinguish my own paws from those of other members of the pack.
OF COURSE, THE EASY satisfaction of my lupine nature couldn’t last forever. I woke at dawn naked and human. Eased out from beneath the other sleeping bodies and picked up Harry’s waterproof flashlight before returning to the cave we’d barely escaped the day before.
The water had receded during the night, leaving the ground muddy but the pool beneath the waterfall at its pre-flood level. Shivering, I considered assuming the painted cavern was similarly pristine and turning around without diving into the much smaller stream channel.
But I didn’t. I had to know how much damage Blackburn and I had created between us. Had to know whether his body was really as ravaged as I remembered when I fled from this spot less than a day before.
I took a deep breath and slid into the frigid water, letting the flow push me through the tunnel in a gushing rush. After my struggles yesterday, the downhill movement felt effortless, as easy as traversing a child’s slip-and-slide.
Then I was kneeling on wet pebbles for the second time in twenty-four hours, unwilling to view the truth. This time my wolf was sleeping, so there was no one present to force me to raise my flashlight and look around.
I stayed there for quite a while before giving in to curiosity. To curiosity and to the wish to see the prehistoric painter’s work when I wasn’t racing against imminent danger. I lifted the flashlight...then choked at the sight.
My glasses had been lost in the flood and struggle, so my vision was blurry and dim. Still, I could see enough to note that Blackburn’s body was absent, washed away by the flood waters along with all signs of my wolf’s depredations.
It wasn’t carnage that tightened my throat painfully. Instead, the water had risen so high while I was absent that the walls had been washed free of ochre. Only the barest trace of a horse mane was visible near the ceiling. Every other painted animal was entirely gone.
I’ll never make my father proud of me now. I choked on the realization that I’d been hunting for this cave not so much for its scientific merit as for validation of my worth as Dr. Hart’s daughter. Because he’d have to respect me if I made a find that changed the face of archaeology. He’d have to admit that being a professor was as good as being a treasure hunter then.
And now...Dr. Hart would never see my discovery. I’d never have a way to prove that the voices in my head were real rather than a brain-chemistry problem to be medicated away. Which meant my father would continue to avoid the disappointment of my presence, leaving me alone with absolutely no family in the world.
Well, no family except the one I was creating. Suzy, my students, Adena, Val, Claw.
I smiled rather than tensing as someone broke out of the water behind me. I knew who it would be before I swiveled to face him.
Claw’s naked body rose like a sea god out of the shallow cave pool. “What’s wrong?” he demanded without bothering to inhale first.
For my part, I did inhale. Shuffled my feet. Then asked him the question I needed answered before I could accept that my wolf and I were adding him to our little pack.
“Why are you afraid to touch me?”
We stood there at an impasse, worlds of unspoken assumptions shattering any tenuous connection. Then, finally, Claw opened his mouth....
To avoid the question? To answer it? I’ll never know the answer.
Because our constant chaperone popped out of the stream tunnel with a splutter of annoyance. “Hate to break this up,” Theta said dryly. “But our ride has arrived.”
Chapter 29
The helicopter was massive, boasting two rotors and an entire team of support staff plus huge plastic totes full of supplies. Half of the newcomers were Secret Service agents who surrounded the President in a human barricade. The other half were medical officers, who were understandably concerned at our party’s lack of clothes.
<
br /> Between them, the crew split us up to be treated—and debriefed—in a matter of moments. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if the nurse I ended up with hadn’t rubbed my wolf entirely the wrong way.
“Turn toward me,” the nurse demanded before shining a startlingly bright light directly in one eye after the other. Adding insult to injury, he hit me with a tough question at the exact same time. “What were you doing aboard Air Force One?”
Eat him, my wolf suggested. And it was all I could do to maintain my composure as she attempted to steal my body and shift.
“I’m an archaeologist. The President had an archaeology question,” I said aloud even as I warned my wolf: One day two-legged, one day four-legged. Yesterday we’d hunted. Today I was in charge.
My inner beast subsided with all the grace of a cranky two-year-old, pressing canines out of my upper palate as the nurse palpitated my injured arm. “Hey!” I protested, speaking with my mouth closed while fighting against my suddenly lupine dentition.
“Sorry,” the nurse said vaguely, even though he clearly wasn’t repentant. My wolf didn’t bother to apologize, but at least she now allowed the long, sharp teeth to fade back into our gums.
“Pretty sure your arm’s broken,” the nurse continued as if I wasn’t aware of that fact already. “We’ll need a hospital for the cast and x-ray, but a sling will do for now.”
I nodded, working the blue mesh fabric under my elbow. Despite the difficulty of managing an annoyed wolf around unwitting humans, it was a relief to engage with the trappings of civilization once again.
“We just need to go through a few final questions to check your mental status, then we can wrap this up,” the nurse continued, his interest in me waning. “What season is it?”
“Winter,” I answered dryly, taking in the frosty mud replacing recent snow.
“Your name?”
“Olivia Hart.”
“And the day of the week?”
Up until this point, I’d been answering on auto-pilot. But now I caught my breath. “It’s Monday. Or, wait...is it Tuesday?”
I started counting days and hours, reminded myself of the time I’d lost in the body of my wolf.
“No,” the nurse countered. “Wednesday.” He made a notation on his tablet, likely recommending me for psychiatric counseling...or a prison cell.
But I didn’t care. Instead, I had only one thought driving me.
“I need a computer immediately,” I demanded. “Grades are due at five this evening. And I have a very important meeting immediately after that.”
“THIS IS A SECURE LAPTOP,” the guy in black fatigues protested when I tried to borrow his computer. Okay, so, my wolf was the one doing the borrowing, which meant there was more grabbing involved than human words.
“You don’t understand,” I countered, fingers unwilling to release the corner of plastic I’d ended up with before descending into a tug of war with the Secret Service agent. “If I don’t finish my grading, the system marks the kids down as failing. It’s a bug the tech team can’t seem to iron out. This could go on their permanent records. It could screw up the rest of their lives.”
“Not my problem.” His hand dropped toward the pistol in his hip holster. And I hesitated, unwilling to provoke gunfire for the sake of my career.
Then Jim Kelter was behind me, latent electricity hovering subtly enough that it didn’t quite make my hair leap to attention. “If she wants the computer,” he intervened, voice quiet but adamant, “then she gets the computer.”
“Mr. President, as you’re well aware this laptop contains information relevant to national security....”
“Dr. Hart has the highest possible clearance.”
I lost track of their discussion after that, because the Secret Service guy had come to attention and released his hold on the laptop in the process. To my delight, the interface, at first unfamiliar, coughed up a browser after some hunting. That, in turn, let me pull up the university’s cloud.
Ah, here we go. Dozens of papers were turned in and accounted for. Before opening any of them, however, I checked on my brilliant-but-prone-to-tardiness freshman.
“Not cool, Joe,” I muttered, leaving the President to his argument and ambling sideways to perch atop a plastic box with a red cross on one side. If someone needed bandages, they could move me. For now, I needed all five of my working digits to type out an email message to my slacking perfectionist.
“One hour,” I warned in my message. “I know it’s written. It’ll never be perfect. Turn it in now.”
Then I clicked back over to the completed assignments, opening the first document and starting to skim. The thesis was pretty basic, but the facts were well researched and fully acceptable. I checked the student’s name. Ah, Cynthia. I’d figured she’d wind up with a B.
“...anything else?”
I didn’t even realize Jim Kelter was talking to me until he partially closed the laptop lid down over my fingers. He was crouched down on my level, eyes sad as if losing his wolf had been a wrench rather than a source of satisfaction. Still, his words were steady and kind when he continued: “Anything you need, let me know and it’s yours.”
“The satellite connection is laggy and it’s hard to type one-handed,” I told him honestly. “But, naw, I’ll be fine.”
Then I realized we were alone in the center of the storm of preparations for leaving. Harry, Claw, and Theta had donned spare uniforms and slotted into the sea of black-clad agents as easily as if they’d never been lupine. Even Val was in her element, bossing nurses around.
Which left me and Jim Kelter some distance from the action. This was likely the last chance I’d ever get to talk to the President of the United States about what had happened.
So I asked the questions that had been nagging at me. “Would you do it again? Do you regret losing your wolf?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he threw dignity to the winds.
Settling all the way onto the ground and wrapping his arms around his legs like a child at story time, he spoke slowly and honestly. “I miss him. But he kept me from doing my job.”
The peace summit. The international leaders who’d been understandably miffed when the U.S. representative punched an ally in front of the cameras.
“Plus, I worried about the wolf around my kids.”
Annalise. Janet. Teenaged mood swings and preteen braces. Yes, they were reason enough to yank out half of one’s soul.
For a moment, we sat in silence. Then, Jim Kelter’s eyes crinkled up the way they did on television. He stroked one broad hand across my tangled hair before sitting back away from me.
“I couldn’t handle the inner turmoil,” he offered, his words a quiet rumble of approval, “but you can. You’re a fighter. I hope my daughters grow up to be half as strong.”
FOR JIM KELTER, DOING his job equated to world peace. For me, it involved helping my students succeed.
So I barely looked up from my commandeered laptop as we entered the helicopter, and I continued grading despite the ensuing motion and noise. For the sake of fairness, I perused the term papers in the order in which they’d been delivered, which meant that Patricia’s didn’t pop up on my screen until the trees beneath us had given way to highways and houses. Then I lost track of my surroundings as I fell into her fictional world.
The young woman’s research was evident well before I scrolled down to the scientific postscript. For all her airs of superiority, Patricia had listened to every lecture and she must have read deeply into her chosen topic between now and then to have added such verisimilitude to her flight of fancy.
Still, it was the story that grabbed me. A prehistoric woman, lost on the arctic tundra. Her struggles for survival. Her unwillingness to return to her restrictive natal clan.
The strange beings who found her. The terror of their lupine natures. The wonder when she realized they were her new home.
She was terrified to embrace the wild ways of her s
aviors, but exhilarated as well. And when she was given the chance to return to her former home under slightly improved circumstances, the protagonist refused.
“Because family isn’t a death sentence,” Patricia’s character had finished. “Family is a jumping-off point if you’re brave enough to leap.”
Patricia herself had jumped off from her father’s mandate of a scientific degree with supreme gracefulness, so much so that I had to swipe a tear from my eye before I could see well enough to attach the file to an email as I’d promised.
Suzy would be the recipient, I decided. She wasn’t a professor, but she clearly knew a good story and was nurturing to a fault. If anyone could help Patricia turn fiction into a viable career path, the department secretary was the one to ask.
Then we were hovering and landing. Jim Kelter must have argued in my favor, because this was my familiar college town rather than the nation’s capitol. After one glance at the scenery, I logged out of various programs and returned the laptop to the scowling agent I’d initially nabbed it from.
By this time, we had touched down in a ball field half a mile from my house. There was no time to waste on tearful farewells before I dove into the second half of my grading marathon.
I took a deep breath, making sure Adena was firmly attached to my shoulder. Then I headed toward the open doorway...only to find Claw waiting just outside the helicopter.
Chapter 30
“Olivia.”
“Claw.”
Our audience of medical officials, special agents, and former pack mates was daunting. Even though it felt like a trick, I accepted his steadying hand and stepped down to join him outside.
The air here was warmer than it had been in the mountains. No, that increased temperature was coming from inside myself. Maybe the gradient was due to borrowed clothing...or to the proximity of Claw’s enticing heat.
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