Pack Justice (Nature of the Beast Book 1) (8 page)

The red and gold wolf found me before I could shake off the pain enough to stagger back to my paws and make my escape. My nose informed me it was a female, and there was a sour undertone to her scent that worried my wolf.

While I had always been aware of my cheetah, we only melded when I assumed his shape. We were together in the wolf’s body, and my feline recognized the massive beast; his hatred surged through me, leaving no room for doubt who—and what—the red and gold wolf was.

I wasn’t the only one with a secret, and my wife was a wolf who had come hunting for me. Idette’s madness burned bright in her golden eyes. My wolf recoiled from the taint in my wife’s scent, and after so many years with my cheetah, I reflexively made room for him, sheltering him from what he feared, although I didn’t understand the significance of the smells filling my nose.

I decided it didn’t matter what the sour odor signified; it made my fur stand on end while my skin crawled, and that was enough of a warning for me.

I struggled to rise, but Idette smacked her paw against my shoulder and drove me to the damp ground, pinning me beneath her unnatural weight. At one-sixty, my cheetah was as large as the species came. Idette dwarfed a mastiff, and I was a much, much smaller beast. To her, I was nothing more than a puppy. I shuddered as she lowered her muzzle towards my throat, and the wild instincts of my wolf drove a whine out of me.

Instead of biting down with her jaws as I expected, she dragged her tongue over my fur, and the scent of my blood overwhelmed the rich scents of the dawn forest. I wanted to join the wolf within and recoil from her. A new scent taunted my nose.

Fear was a bitter and sharp stench, and I stank of it, although most of it welled from the pair of beasts in my head. My wolf’s anxiety was the most pungent, and his world narrowed to the feel of Idette’s attentions to my injured neck.

He expected her to bite and undo all he had done by saving me for the sake of my grieving cheetah. In that moment, the knowledge of what they had both done seeped into me until their memory of joining and binding themselves to me became my own. They had, as my life bled away, broken through the barriers separating man and beast.

My cheetah and my wolf would remain with me for however long I lived, and I worried for them far more than I did about Idette’s intentions. If she killed me, would they die as well?
 

Idette would kill me, or she wouldn’t. There was nothing I could do to change that. My body hurt too much to fight her, and the shaky weakness of blood loss and shock sapped me of the will to try.

When I had fought her, I had understood death came to all things, myself included—but my cheetah had feared the unknown beyond the end of my life. I had adopted nature’s regard for death, and my spirit beast had been consumed by the human way of worrying over the future instead of the present.

My ongoing survival was a puzzle I couldn’t solve, no matter how hard I thought about it. The wolf had done what my cheetah hadn’t been able to do, taking my dying human form and forcing me to assume his shape. I don’t know how my cheetah had managed, but he had convinced my wolf I was worth the effort, and that he would pay any price, so long as I could be saved.

How would we live, three individuals sharing one body? Would they consume me, or would I wear away at the wildness of my beasts until they were nothing more than the shapes of animals with a human’s mind?

Idette seized the nape of my neck in her teeth, and I yipped and whined from the pain. With a growl and a shake of her head, she silenced me. My wolf’s terror surged, and my body curled up, my hind legs lifting as I tucked my tail in response to his fear.

I couldn’t hold the pose long before my flagging strength gave out, and I hung limp in Idette’s jaws.

Chapter Six

Idette carried me to the kayaks and dumped me at the water’s edge. In the sunrise light, she transformed from wolf to woman. In the past, when I shifted, it was a slow but relatively painless endeavor. The worst part was the moment when fur made way for flesh, leaving muscle exposed to the open air. During my shifts, that part of the process happened fast, but it lit every nerve on fire.

My wife’s bones broke with audible cracks, and while she made no noise, her body convulsed on the shore. As a wolf, I had no real sense of time. Unable to tear my gaze away, I watched as she shrank, her bones snapping and reforming to take on her human shape. Her fur fell from her flesh and dissolved before it had a chance to drift to the ground.

I should have run, but my body betrayed me. The one time I tried, I shook so hard I couldn’t get my paws under me. I panted, and every breath sent pain stabbing down the length of my spine.

When she was finished transforming, I learned she had the foresight to bring her clothes to her kayak. She dressed without a word, although she growled as she pulled her shirt over her head.

Turning to me, she stared down her nose, her eyes narrowing as she considered me. Her body moved with a wolf’s grace, and she knelt beside me, reaching out to touch my neck. I flinched, and when she lifted her hand, her fingers were stained red with my blood.

Working her arms beneath me, she picked me up. I yipped at the pain in my paw and throat, but she ignored my protests, dumping me in her kayak so she could pull the craft into the water.

The motion sent stabbing pain up my left foreleg, and I shuddered, adopting my feline instincts to keep quiet to hide my presence from other predators.

My wolf didn’t understand; he wanted a pack, and he identified Idette as one of us, one who obeyed the whims of the moon. The fury from my cheetah startled my wolf into silence, and all three of us worried about my wife’s plans.

They feared what Idette would do, although they feared for different reasons. I, on the other hand, had no idea how to return to human form; the way I knew no longer worked. Before, when I had borrowed my cheetah’s physical manifestation, it was a mutual parting, and all I had to do was concentrate a little and the shifting process would begin.

Pain hampered my concentration, but in the moments focus was possible, what should have worked failed, leaving me trapped in my wolf’s body.

Idette climbed in, kicking at my flanks and back until she worked her feet under me. Without a word, she left my kayak behind and headed towards the other side of the lake to the cabin. I considered making the effort to jump into the water and swim for it, but each time I tried to move, jolts of sharp pain coursed through my body, leaving me twitching and sprawled over my wife’s shins.

I longed to sink my teeth into her. My cheetah approved of my vicious desire while my wolf was puzzled by my vindictiveness. I was aware of the two communicating, though I had no idea what they were talking about. My cheetah mewed, purred, and chirped while my wolf warbled questions. By the time Idette pulled the kayak up to the dock in front of the cabin, my cheetah purred and my wolf quieted.

Idette seized me by the scruff, lifting me as though I weighed nothing, carrying me inside to dump me in the kitchen’s large island sink. The fact I fit alarmed me almost as much as the way she pinned me against the stainless steel, rendering me helpless with one hand. Extending the faucet, she turned the water to cold and sprayed it over my fur, concentrating most of her efforts on my throat.

Whether she was satisfied I wasn’t struggling or she wanted better access to my back, she shifted her grip to my muzzle. I tensed, waiting for one of her outbursts of violence, but she worked in calm silence.

I considered myself lucky she made some effort to keep my nose out of the spray. Blood turned the draining water pink, and it didn’t take long for the chill to soak through my fur. I shuddered, swallowing back my urge to whine, aware of how Idette hated dogs who made noise.

While my wolf was offended by the comparison with lesser beasts, he tolerated my desire for silence, although I had the feeling he could—and would—seize control if he didn’t approve of how I behaved in his body.

My cheetah wasn’t very different, and after a lifetime of working with a feline, I respected the boundary he set. As long as I behaved in a fashion suiting a wolf, he would tolerate me.

In exchange for my life, I would respect his limits.

The warmth of my wolf’s approval warded away some of the water’s chill and buffered me from the knowledge Idette could easily snap my neck and be done with me. Both of my spirit beasts encouraged me to remain still and submissive until I healed enough to act.

From my wolf, I got the distinct feeling he was waiting for something, although the specifics eluded me. Words didn’t pass between us, but the clarity of his emotions both intrigued and alarmed me. The undertones of wariness and uncertainty remained, and I couldn’t blame him.

I had the feeling it wasn’t for
my
sake the wolf had bound himself to me.

With my cheetah, I read his body language as well as sensed brief bursts of emotions from my spirit beast. Our relationship had been more than friendship, and I wondered how we would change as a result of Idette’s attack. All of the rules I knew no longer applied, and I worried about what would happen to the three of us, assuming I survived whatever Idette planned for me.

I kept still and as quiet as I could, choking back my whines when she inspected my throat. Whether she was confident I wouldn’t run or knew I had no place to go, she turned off the faucet and left me in the sink, returning several minutes later with one of my shirts and a kitchen knife.

She cut the silk into strips, which she used to wrap my throat. When she finished, she grabbed my muzzle and held my head still while she bound my mouth shut. I put my ears back, but at my spirit beasts’ insistence, I remained silent.

“Everything’ll be okay now,” my wife murmured, stroking her hand along the length of my dripping back. “I’ll take good care of you. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. No one will ever separate us now, not as long as I live.”

That was exactly what I was afraid of, and judging from the twin chills in my head, my beasts were worried, too.

While my injured paw held my weight, neither my cheetah nor wolf savored the idea of attempting an escape. Standing without help was one thing, but hunting was another, and neither my cheetah nor my wolf had any confidence in our chance of survival in the wild.

I wanted to pant, but with my muzzle bound shut, I couldn’t draw deep breaths, which frightened me almost as much as Idette’s calm and calculated behavior.

Within minutes, I smothered in the heat. Whining, I pawed frantically at the silk binding my muzzle. When I kept whining, my wife snarled a curse at me but loosened the silk enough I could force open my mouth to pant. For a long time, all I could do was concentrate on breathing.

Idette returned our bags to the rental car, set me on the front passenger seat, and drove away from the lodge, leaving me to wonder when she had found my keys. There was no sign of my cell phone or wallet, and I decided she had left them in the forest with my blood-stained clothes.

Whenever they were found—if someone found them—the discovery would cause a stir, not that it’d do me any good. They’d be looking for a man, not a wolf. I considered the things she left behind, sighed, and decided if I managed to transform back to a human, I’d be grateful for the inconvenience of replacing my identification, my credit cards, and all the other things I had kept in my wallet. I’d lose the contacts on my cell, but they could be recovered.