Chapter Two #2
Brogan was feeling quite pleased with herself as she slipped through the window. She was on the top deck of the stable, focused on the bag and the big mound of hay that the ungrateful woman must be hiding under.
She jumped down and reached into the hay. Nothing but hay.
Just as she was thinking, I was tricked, a heavy blow hit her on the head from behind.
Brogan fell forward, shook her head to clear it, and scrambled to her feet. It was her. She made a grab at the woman, her wolf speed far greater than the woman expected, and she got hold of her tunic and pulled her in close.
“I just want to talk to you.”
She sighed. “Okay, GallowGlas.”
Brogan let go of her short tunic. “Okay, can—”
Just as she uttered those words, the woman jumped over her head. Brogan turned just in time to see her point her hand towards her satchel. A pair of handcuffs shot out of the bag, and clicked around Brogan’s wrists.
Brogan laughed. “You think these will hold me? I’m an alpha werewolf. I can rip these off in seconds.”
With an infuriating smirk on her face the woman said, “Take them off, then.”
Brogan pulled her wrists apart, and all she could do was jerk them. The cuffs never loosened.
She tried again and again, while her adversary laughed.
Being mocked by this woman was making her angrier and angrier. “What is going on?”
Her opponent swung the key around her finger. “Silver cuffs, Wolf.”
Enough was enough. “I don’t need my hands.”
Brogan attempted to run at her opponent head first, but again she jumped, and Brogan ended up on the ground.
To Brogan’s surprise and fury, the woman straddled her chest. Anger and heat spread through her body to her very fingertips. As a dominant wolf, Brogan wasn’t used to being on her back with a woman.
But the woman was so close to her that her scent was filling Brogan’s nostrils. It made her heart pound, and she had flashes of a large tree in an endless forest, but Brogan didn’t have time to waste sorting out how the scent of her captor was affecting her body.
Brogan rolled them over. The surprise caught the woman out, and Brogan was now on top of her, her hips between her legs.
Brogan pinned the woman’s arms down above her head with Brogan’s own bound forearms. “Give me the key, and I won’t hurt you.”
She stared deeply into Brogan’s eyes and slightly opened her lips, then licked her pink tongue along her bottom lip.
Brogan couldn’t take her eyes from her tongue, and a heavy beat thudded inside her.
The woman took that moment of distraction and tossed the key to the side. She couldn’t toss it far, considering their positions.
That gave Brogan the green light to get it. She rolled off and reached for the key, but before she could touch it, the key jerked away and shot into the leather satchel.
Brogan got up quickly and ran over to the bag. She opened it and rummaged through it, and then turned it upside down and shook it. Not one thing dropped out.
“Argh! Give me the key.”
The woman had gotten up and was brushing down her clothes. “Never.”
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No, you’re not going to hurt me. I’ve made sure of that.”
“I could, and I’m trying to restrain myself,” Brogan said.
She walked up to Brogan with a smug smile. “No, I’m restraining you, Wolf. Despite your wolf features trying desperately to come out.”
Brogan was sure her face was distorted. She tried a different tack. She dropped down to one knee to appear less threatening. “This is all a misunderstanding. My name is Brogan. What’s yours?”
“I don’t care what my bounty hunter’s name is. You know very well I’m the Map Keeper.”
“Map Keeper? I don’t know what that means. I saved you, remember?”
“That was part of the plan.” She strolled over to Brogan. “And that plan has left you in cuffs on your knees, Wolf.”
“You are so smug, Map Keeper, if that’s even your name. Do you think if I wasn’t bound by the dominant wolf values, that I wouldn’t be able to subdue you?”
Camber walked over to her satchel, amused by the wolf’s situation and arrogance. “It doesn’t look like it from here. Oh, and just a note. The more you pull at those cuffs, the more strength you waste.”
Brogan sat down in resignation. “I am not a bounty hunter or whatever you think I am. My name is Brogan. I was thrown through this strange portal while trying to help save my friends.”
Camber put her satchel across her body. “Who was this person you and your friends were fighting against?”
“An evil god called Balor.”
That name pricked up her ears. Balor was a name well known in these parts. “Balor isn’t a god. He’s a fae with delusions of grandeur.”
“He seemed powerful to us. Anyway, I got thrown through this window to another world…and everything was confusing. Then I saw you were being attacked, and I helped save you, regardless of whether you were doing it by yourself.”
Camber felt truth in what this wolf had said, but she’d been fooled many times before with plausible stories, and it always came down to her being a hair’s breadth from being captured. “I’ve heard stories like this before—”
Brogan jumped to her feet looking furious. “I followed you because I need help, because I need to get home, and I’m not in Kansas any more.”
Brogan’s anger felt genuine, but Camber had no idea what she was talking about. “Kansas?”
“You don’t even know about what I’m talking about. That shows just how far away from home I am.” Brogan pulled in frustration at her silver bonds and bent over, weaker for it.
“I told you what those bonds do—don’t test them,” Camber said.
“I followed you because as well as being ungrateful for my help, you looked as if you knew your way around these portal window things. I just want to go home.”
That plea for home did pull at her heartstrings, but that had been tried before.
“Usually, GallowGlas lone wolves aren’t to be trusted.”
“What is this GallowGlas wolf thing? I might be a lone wolf on my world, but I am still close to my family pack. The Irish Filtiaran pack.”
Camber was weakening by the moment. “And you weren’t sent here by the Abnobians?”
“Amphibians?”
Camber sighed. “Abnobians. You are playing a very good game, Wolf. A GallowGlas is a wolf warrior, which I’m sure you know.”
“I’m no—”
Brogan ran behind some hay bales and waved Camber in. “Someone’s coming.”
Camber was sure this was a trick.
Brogan looked exasperated and whispered, “Wolf hearing,” while pointing to her ears.
Camber didn’t move until she heard someone shout, “Check the barn.”
She rushed in beside Brogan, feeling uneasy. Brogan could be waiting to out her to the guards, but she didn’t have much choice.
As she tucked in beside Brogan, the hairs on her arms stood up and prickles ran up her neck like a thousand little pins. She always trusted her instincts, but Camber didn’t know if she should help this wolf, or if she was a danger to her.
Camber looked around the barn and made sure she saw a line of escape if Brogan the wolf double-crossed her.