“Why don’t you come over and give us a lick.” Mr. Vocal had no idea how un-fetching comments like that are. He waggled his stupid little spindle toward me.
I said, “Why don’t you drop to your ass and lick yourself? I’m sure you’ve done it before.”
Of course, he couldn’t do it in human. He’d have to go back to lupus. I immediately took it back. “I mean, wait.”
His fingers stilled. I know he was a little confused. I mean, after all, I was talking dirty to him, but being bitchy. And I kept my distance. So that was one of those deals where he wasn’t sure if he was doing good or not. Stupid fuck.
“I really would like to see something unusual.”
He and his friends rubbed themselves harder. Guess they couldn’t help it, what with a female saying she wanted something more.
“Why don’t you taste your own juice?” I batted my eyes.
Hood asked in mind talk,
Fera, if you can hear me, you better let me know where you are.
Answering him would have stopped my fun. I couldn’t wait for him to find us on his own.
“You mean, like this?” Mr. Vocal slid a finger over the hooded end of his cock and then put it to his lips.
I asked, “You like the way it tastes?”
I know he was thinking this could be one of those damned if I do, damned if I don’t situations. He took a gamble and said, “Yeah.”
“Good. Lick his cock, please.” I let my nose dip toward the guy next to him. “All of you, pick a friend.”
They weren’t sure if they wanted to do it. I mean, you could tell some of them were up for it. They’d turned to the guy next to them.
That’s when Leer and Hood found us.
Hood exclaimed, “What the fuck?”
I tried not to laugh.
Leer turned a sorry eye on his pack brothers, breathed out through his nose a few times and, I’m sure, struggled for words. See, two dogs fucking is fine. Many dogs fucking is okay. But no females in the party, that smacks of straggle packs. No breeding. I’m not saying it’s bad. Just...not our deal at Pack City.
Now, I didn’t realize it, but the little bit of excitement there had really started to get my juices flowing. So you could say that, even though I don’t really go for it, it did kind’ve turn me on. In fact, I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to see a little more action before the others showed up.
But my scent had definitely caught a little wind.
Bitches started to circle in.
And I think Leer forgave that sorry lot, just on basis of the fact that I was to blame. Irritated me a little. I mean, well, I don’t want to get into that. But mark my words, you don’t want to make a bitch mad. We tend to carry grudges.
Kayty arrived, took a look around.
Did I mention that the sudden arrival of everybody else didn’t make those knotheads take their hands off themselves? They kept on stroking, and started releasing in spurts. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mr. Vocal dump his seed, then lick his fingers. And yeah, he was watching me the whole time. I pretended not to notice.
The smell of fresh semen had everyone’s nose twitching.
Again, though, I felt more than saw, a movement in the woods outside the perimeter line. I sat up. But you can sure as hell bet my ass was on the ground. Whatever was out there, I think, had come for smelling me. And it scared me, not knowing what it was.
I peered toward the shadows, and that’s when I saw
him.
Chapter Four
“Fera!” Hood’s voice had me snapping my head around in a quick swivel. “I thought I told you to stay close.”
That annoyed me. “I needed to stretch.”
Hood’s gaze strayed to the losers. “Some stretch.”
“I need to run.”
Kayty said, “It’s coming. I can smell it.” She meant my change.
Leer agreed. “Everybody in P.C. can smell it.”
“Fera, why don’t you come back to the council cave? It’ll be safer for you there.” Kayty’s compassion almost suckered me in.
But the eyes in the woods, I could feel them still. And I wondered who, or what, had smelled me and come. Come to make me come. That thought made me grin to myself. I wanted to come, go, out and see--and come. The thought kinda drumrolled through my brain, repeating itself until I forced it to quit, tried to gather my wits.
“You think I’m not safe here?” I asked Kayty, but my gaze strayed around the circle. I’d just unloaded half the loser guns in Pack City. Most of the others were mated already. Not that it wouldn’t have stopped them from doing it doggie style with me, if I wanted. But I wasn’t yet primed. You know how it is with a dog bitch, when she’s not ready? Or a woman who doesn’t want sex, but has an ardent pursuer? We just ain’t backing up for it, ya know?
I assured them all, “I guarantee you, I won’t be taken before I’m ready.” My voice rose. I wanted it to carry to my stalker.
“Nevertheless, why don’t you come inside?” Kayty practiced her crooning voice. She used it on small pups, Leer and now me. I wanted to roll my eyes.
But that would have been disrespectful. Instead, I dropped my gaze to her feet and got up, shoulders hunched, and said, “Fine.”
It wasn’t fine, though. I took a few steps and looked back over my shoulder. Something in me wanted
it
to leap in and steal me away, or fight my whole damn pack. I know, there’s no sense in that sort of thinking. But then, that all goes out the window when it starts.
And my shifting had started. As I walked behind Kayty, listening to the grumbled complaints of others--some whining because they’d missed the loser’s twenty-gun salute--so to speak, there weren’t really that many of them. Some complained because they wanted to see me endure a little pain. Blood envy.
Did I mention that some don’t survive the first change? It can be pretty horrific. I think maybe some of my kin were half hoping that would happen to me. Not because they didn’t like me, really, but it would kind of put Hood in a different place. He wouldn’t be able to lift his head up, because everyone would wonder if our blood was tainted. And, like I said, he’d run his mouth pretty good on that matter.
I wasn’t worried about that, though. I started to walk, heard the mutterings, and suddenly started to feel my muscles stretch, tighten. I reached out with my neck, let out a little whine, had to stop.
Kayty looked over her shoulder at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
She waited a second, watching me. I saw her nose wiggle. Then her head whipped around. Mr. Shadow wasn’t, apparently, a secret any more.
They all smelled him about a second later. But--no one moved. The only way you could tell was by that stillness, a sudden silence. Leer flicked his left hand in a simple gesture. Two bitches slipped away.
He said, “I think the den is too obvious. Take her to the other place.”
“Right.” Kayty grabbed my collar.
Gaia-damned collar. Stylish little piece of human apparel. I thought it was cute. Now I knew why my brother had groaned and promised, “You’ll be sorry about that little piece of rebellion.”
I dug in my feet. Let my eyes flash. This other place had to be the lockdown. A garrison. A hellhole.
She assured me, “Just until. I promise.”
Now, Kayty’s word had always been as good as gold. I had no real reason not to go. They were looking out for me. I tried to tell myself that.
But curiosity and raging hormones were really ruling my brain and body. I whispered, “I don’t want to be locked up.”
She’d been studying up on history. She whispered back, “Just be glad they’re not cuffing and shackling any more, Fera. Come on.”
We took a few steps toward P.C. main.
Now would probably be a good time to talk about the one type of werewolf that I think you’re most familiar with. The ones that are bitten. Mutants. The unnaturals.
We really have laws against making that happen. But you may have guessed...the losers sometimes get bested. They attack with intent to kill, but get run off before the job is done. Usually, if we hear about an unnatural, the pack takes a trip to the city, does a quick and efficient hunt, takes care of the problem.
No one wants to report an unnatural. At least, in any way that would suggest they’re responsible for the creation. Sloppy half-kills are worse than massacres in our opinion.
So, sometimes losers make mistakes. Who doesn’t? But their mistakes become nightmares; confused beasts whose hunting and killing instincts have been heightened, as well as their night vision and other senses. Their instincts also draw them to us. Sometimes they steal our weaker members. Believe it or not, they terrorize us. They certainly have a heightened urge to mate.
I should also say here that we generally don’t go after the human population for our meals. Oh, we kill them plenty--when we interact in the business world and they get in our way, or that sort of thing. But we are pretty selective in our ‘prey.’ And honestly, humans can’t run fast enough to give enough thrill for a hunt. And they tend to paralyze somewhere in the brain section when they’re under extreme stress. We are, above all, predators of the highest order. We like a challenge. Sorry, average humans just don’t make the grade.
Snicker.
A deer provides a better challenge than most people.
So, you’d think that an unnatural would be the ultimate in prey, especially after they go crinos.
Some think so.
Most of us are a little smarter than that, and recognize the personal risk. When it comes down to it, we’re not half the beast that you might think. We think rationally, weigh our odds.
But we can’t afford to let an unnatural roam free. Well, roam at all. If they go and half-bite people, we’d have a zombie-type nightmare on our hands. They’d maybe start a pack of their own. And then we’d have real trouble.
I probably should have mentioned that it was late, late enough for the early rising moon to be up. Dusk had fallen while the losers did their deal, and yeah, the moon was full.
Hood saw me balking. He snapped, “Go, Fera,” like I was a domesticated dog. Talk about making me see red.
I mean, I am the prime pussy of the moment. And I’m not talking about cats.
Leer shook his head, even he was having trouble trying to clear his brain. He said, “Kayty, get her put up now.”
I thought that was interesting. I really balked, then. That was a new little tidbit of empowerment. I’d always thought there was just something that couldn’t be breached between him and Kayty. But his reaction, his body language, made me think...just maybe...there was hope.
Kayty squashed that in one feral snap-and-pop shift to crinos. It’s like playing rock, paper, scissors. Lupus beats human. Crinos beats lupus. She said, “All right, bitch, I can smell your heat.”
She dragged me off then. It was degrading, made me furious. And I could feel my inner self grinding its will to get out, to fight my cause. I started thinking like a real bitch. Thinking I could maybe slice Kayty once, in the belly, and it would be all she could do to slash back--her mothering instinct would have her dropping to a ball.
It’s kind of ugly when you get right down to it. And I don’t like looking back at those moments when she was hauling me across the compound. But surprise of surprise, she didn’t toss me in the garrison. She threw me into the den and then scrunched down on her haunches like a Neanderthal. Her eyes flashed and her teeth gnashed, and I knew she was warring with a few inner truths of her own.
She said, “Make no mistake, Fera. I’ll kill you before I let you near Leer.”
I had to chuckle. After all, if Leer wanted me, she would be out, period. I’d have to watch my back forever until she was put down, but Leer really made the ultimate choice.
At the moment, I didn’t take the time to realize that he’d just made that decision. He didn’t care that his instincts were to take the hot female. His heart and his brain had already made its pick. Kayty. I can see that now. And that makes me okay with the choices I’ve made since then--but I’ll get to that.
Pacing the cave, thinking about tackling her, wondering how long before the change would be complete, I felt my bones stretching, knew I was growing, my legs lengthening, strengthening, becoming denser. I expected a body-numbing pain to hit me at any time, to drop me to the floor in writhing agony.
“You think that’s funny?” She wasn’t amused. In fact, she was downright irritable over it.
Clouds must’ve moved in the sky, because her form became illuminated. Her pretty head tipped up to look at it. Could’ve been a mistake, her taking her eye off me.
But she said, “I hate pack life, Fera.” I knew that wasn’t true. She just didn’t like certain aspects of it. Kayty loved being part of the group. And her position in the pack made her feel connected, something she hadn’t ever had before. She’d told me that numerous times.
Kayty sniffed. “You’re my friend. My best friend here, besides Leer.” She sniffed again.
I couldn’t believe it. She was crying? Showing me her weakness?
Yes, she was definitely crying. I slinked closer. Was this some sort of trick?
She sniffed again and looked at me. Her jaw hung halfway open and I saw her tongue running along the bottom of her side teeth. She had a hand resting gently over her belly. The other reached up and pushed her hair back and she said, with another sniff, “I know what you’re thinking.”