Chapter 14 #5
Fescue is visibly amused now, though he is trying not to be. I note that not one single slap has landed on Laura’s upturned ass. Her leggings are pulled tight over her cheeks. The target must be alluring. He is not taking advantage of it.
“I’m going to take the inserts out of half of your shoes, so you have to change them all to custom insoles!”
That one is diabolical.
Fescue breaks. He snorts with a hint of laughter, slaps her ass hard once, and tips her back onto her feet.
“You are incorrigible,” he says. “And if you were mine, you would be a very sore, very sorry little whelp. Get out of my sight before I change my mind about letting you go.”
He doesn’t see the look of disappointment on her face as she dashes past me, pretending to be relieved at having gotten out of his grasp.
“You are going to end up dealing with her again sooner than you think,” I tell him.
“It would not be a complete hardship,” he says, standing and smoothing his vest down. “Is all well with your mate?”
“She is resting, and will be well soon, I am sure,” I say. “I need to handle the matter of her father. Taking him with us may have been a mistake.”
Not three minutes later, the truth of that statement becomes incredibly apparent. I go downstairs in the effort to handle the situation with some diplomacy, only to discover that the situation has already handled itself in explosive fashion.
My guards rush up to me, greeting me at the front door. “There’s been a breach of the jail, sir. The prisoner escaped when the doctor tried to sedate him. We’ve had to call a medivac in for the doctor.”
I rush to the prison, where several high-ranking members of my pack are already gathered. There is blood everywhere. Nicky’s father, wretch that he is, tore his way out of the place and made a mess of everyone in his path.
I look at the scene and I feel a very particular kind of calm coming over me. The wolves are looking to me for direction, and I know what must be done.
I remove my jacket. Fescue would be terribly irritated if I let that be ripped to pieces. I don’t bother with the rest of the undressing. I flow from my human state to my animal one. I let the instinct to protect run through me, and I pin my resolve to the only acceptable outcome.
We are going on a hunt.
Again.
This time is different. I am going to end that man, once and for all. I am going to put him out of his madness and his misery, and I am going to free Nicky of all her associations. She will never have to fear a comparison to him again. I will bury him, and then I will bury his associations.
His scent is still fresh. He cannot go far. He is on foot. He is running in wolf form. He will not be able to evade us for long. We are fresh, and he has been kept in captivity for days.
We run. Once I have taken my wolf form, the rest of the preset pack shift in an instant, torn clothing lying over the ground. That will make Fescue both despair and rejoice at the prospect of mending or replacing it.
We are instantly on the chase. The sound of dozens of wolves running at full speed is a very particular tattoo, and I thrill to it.
I have not given myself permission to become fully animal in a long time, to defend my pack, my territory, and my mate. This may be the worst thing I will ever do, but it is also the most necessary.
Behind us, the last wolves pass the message of the hunt to the ones still at the den. There are more coming. Nobody will be left out of this.
We hunt the way wolves do, settling into a pace while a couple of my faster hunters move forward to push the prey on at a speed that will tire him while I and my main attendants maintain a steady pace that we could keep up for hours if necessary.
When the front runners are tired, they drop back and are replaced with others.
We have not seen him yet, but his scent means that we know precisely where he is.
We know when he shifts direction, when he tries to throw us off.
He goes through water in an attempt to lose us, but that does not take long for us to unravel as we spread upstream and down until the scent is picked up again, and then a howl brings us all back to the chase, now with our thirsts slaked.
I do not know how long the hunt takes. In this animal body, focused entirely on my quarry, the passing of time is of no concern. I do not feel hunger or fatigue. All I feel is the intense and all-consuming desire to kill.
He can run for a very long time if he wishes, but he will tire eventually.
He will not be able to go to ground. He will not be able to throw us off track.
These are our lands, and multiple smaller groups of my wolves are even now fanning out, cutting off potential escape routes, and forcing him to take the path that suits us best.
If he’d had any sense, he would never have run. If he’d attacked the doctor and stayed in his human form, we would have to have dealt with him like a human. Law enforcement would have been involved. A custodial sentence. But he let his animal self rule him and now he will die as the beast he is.
* * *
Nicky
The commotion outside my room wakes me up. I don’t know if I was even really sleeping. I had the feeling I was dreaming, but there was nothing in my mind when I opened my eyes and I felt the same exhaustion that has been dogging me for days.
I hear howling and excitement, and something tells me this isn’t a low-level fuss. Throwing off the covers, I go to the doors to ask the guards what’s going on.
But they’re not there.
I’m alone.
Wrapping my dressing gown around me, I walk down the stairs into the main pack space. Everyone has gone. All at once. There are hot coffees still steaming on side tables. Books tossed down with no page markers. There’s a jacket on the floor. Fescue hasn’t picked it up.
Something is wrong.
I keep going down, out into the yard. Again, nobody, though I can hear everyone. I keep moving, and that’s when I see and smell a terrible thing. A handful of medical personnel are working on a couple of wounded people.
That’s why all of this is happening. The medics are medic-ing, and everyone else is giving chase. I see the last few stragglers still here sliding from human to wolf and I follow suit. I don’t want to be left behind in an empty mansion surrounded by blood and medics.
The feeling of joining a pack of running wolves is, I find, like no other. In my wolf form I am much more a creature of instinct than I am at any other time. The exhaustion I’ve been feeling is taken away by the novelty of the chase and the energy of the pack.
I wonder what we’re hunting?
* * *
Rex
The chase comes to its inevitable end at the base of a cliff. Tall rock ranges around in a bowl shape, and we have the exits covered. He is trapped against a sheer face he cannot climb, though he makes a hapless attempt at leaping up.
My pack settles as I move forward. They will leave this matter to me. If he somehow bests me, it will be their jaws he faces, but for now I am all he has to worry about.
The mad wolf turns to face me, panting. He is tired, but he has the energy of a creature who knows it is all about to end. A cornered, mad, feral beast is dangerous. His death is assured. The pack will see to that, but it is possible he will do damage to me before the end.
I step forward, head lowered, eyes fixed.
I expect a fight to the death.
I will give him a good end, an animal end. I will ensure that he leaves this planet with some measure of honor.
Then, instead of doing what any good animal does, Raymond shifts. He goes from his wolf form to his naked human one. He is scarred and he is that particularly kind of sinewy that only comes from a hard life lived badly.
“Are you going to kill me?” He laughs maniacally. “If you do, be sure to eat me. Flesh of my flesh is already ensconced in your pack. You will never be rid of m—”
I don’t hear his last words, though I can extrapolate them from the rest of his ramblings as I leap at him.
My jaws close around his throat and the powerful muscles in my neck and shoulders allow me to shake, rip, and tear until he is dead.
It takes less than ten seconds for him to become a limp shell of a man.
I drop him and step back. I think he thought turning into his human form might save him in the end. He imagined I might play by a set of unspoken rules, be the good guy, do what he thought I’d feel I had to do and follow traditional human justice.
If there is life after death, he now knows just how wrong he was. And if not, I’m sure the moment my canines pierced his neck was just as instructive.
I feel a sense of calm completion coming over me. It is done. He will never hurt anyone again. Nicky will never have to…
“Sir…”
Someone says my name. Many of the pack have shifted now. Not all, but many. They look exhausted. I will have to call in transport for some of them, I think. We are not accustomed to long lethal hunts, and that is something that should probably be addressed. We’ve gotten soft, and…
“Rex?”
I turn around all the way to see Nicky standing behind me. She is naked, which means she must have followed us in her wolf form. I have no idea how she got out of the guarded room, and right now that does not matter.
I go to her as she stands, staring at me with wide, shocked eyes. My fear is that she will run, and I will have to hunt her again. I do not want to keep chasing my mate, but I know that what she has just seen will upset her. She might hate me forever for what I just did.
“You killed him,” she says. She sounds far away, as if she isn’t quite with me anymore. My stomach clenches with worry. I am concerned that one more thing might push her past the point of forbearance. How much is she reasonably supposed to take?
“Yes,” I say. “He attacked the doctor, and several other of my pack members, then he fled. I did what had to be done.”