Wolf’s Glory (9 page)

She seemed to deflate. “All right, fine. Talk.”

The words didn"t want to come. Humility went against his nature. “Walk with me.” He gritted his teeth. “Please.”

She agreed with a grumble and walked beside him out past the lodges. It pleased him that her legs were long enough that he didn"t have to take baby steps so she could keep up. The sunset was glorious in the west, the perfect frame for her hair. The color was so unusual. Pink, just a few shades darker than the sunset itself. He couldn"t resist stroking it. She slapped his hand away.

“I said I"d let you talk. Not pet me like I was a puppy,” she barked.

Shadow stopped walking. “Glory, you are my mate. Not my pet. You said last night that I think I own you. Maybe that"s true. But it"s not the whole story. You own me, too. We own each other.”

“Gag me.” She snorted.

“Glory, do you know about my wolf?”

She looked wary and uncomfortable. “Jill and the other women talked to me about it.”

“You know my wolf has chosen you to be my mate?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And what do you think of that?”

She shrugged, turning her face away. He made sure his hand was light against her cheek when he turned her face back to him. The surface of her cheek was chilled. He covered it with his palm to warm her. “Glory, don"t turn away from me. This is important.”

“How do you eat an elephant?”

He blinked. Maybe after they"d been together fifty years he"d understand how her mind went from one thought to the next. Maybe. “What?”

“One bite at a time, Shadow. So, don"t rush me, okay? I don"t like being bossed around. Let"s just take this slow, okay?”

One bite at a time. She thought their mating was like a large mythical animal to be eaten? He wanted to lay her on the ground and prove his dominance to her in the most primitive way.

She wanted him to go slow. Slow might kill him. But for her, his mate, he would try. This was too important to ruin with haste. “Glory, yesterday you liked me. You wanted me.”

“My mistake,” she snapped.

He wanted to howl that it wasn"t a mistake, but he wrestled his snarling wolf down. “Still, you wanted me. And I want you. I want to take care of you. I want to keep you safe. What can I do to please you?”

“You can drop dead!”

She whirled to leave him, but he quickly caught her arm. “Glory, be serious. You said we should take this slow. I"ll try to not boss you around. Can"t you even stay at my side for an hour?”

She looked at him with an expression he couldn"t decipher. “You know what, Shadow?

You"re hot. Stud-muffin-licious. You could have any woman you want. Any of those women back there would trample me flat to get to you. So why the hell do you want me?”

It was so obvious to him that he couldn"t comprehend why she didn"t know. “Because you"re my mate. I knew it as soon as I scented you, and I couldn"t believe how beautiful you are. I know you don"t love me. I don"t expect that. But I will do everything I can to persuade you to accept me.”

“Damn.” Glory sounded almost tired. “You don"t play fair, Shadow.”

He could smell the faintest hint of arousal in her scent. “May I kiss you, Glory?”

Her tempting lips compressed as she thought about it. He wanted to use his tongue to tease them back into softness. “All right.
One
kiss.”

He would make it last, he thought, carefully touching his lips to hers. Her body felt cold in her thin coat so he wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her tightly against him. She had lush curves that fit him perfectly. Their lips clung, shifted, parted. He was drowning in wet heat, his wolf stretching in glee inside him. At least, until Glory punched him in the side.

“I said one kiss,” she snarled.

Shadow found himself almost dizzy with her scent. “Yeah,” he groaned, controlling his wolf with effort.

“I"m going back.”

She was going to kill him. “I"ll walk you back, darling.”

She punched him again. “Don"t call me darling.”

“I"ll walk you back, darling,” he said again, smiling into her glare. She was his mate, and he would jump through hoops to win her, but he couldn"t let her win every skirmish.

“Whatever,” she grumbled, turning away from him.

*

It was all Glory could do to keep from licking her lips after Shadow had escorted her back to Jill"s tent. Damn, that man could kiss. Jill had a smirk on her face that made her look like the Jill Glory knew, in spite of the wrinkles.

“What?” she demanded defensively.

The smirk disappeared. “Nothing. I"ve sent Jumping Stag to Taye"s Pack for more

supplies for the victims of the plane crash. How many more are coming, do you think?”

Glory"s pleasure from the kiss died under memories of the crash and the broken bodies of the dead. “There were fifty-two alive when I left. Six of us went for help. That left forty-six with the plane. There were maybe thirty of those hurt pretty bad. They might not make it.”

Jill put her hand on Glory"s arm and nodded solemnly. “Let"s go over to the center of camp. We"re going to party tonight. Muddy Wolf is breaking out his liquor. We"ll have dancing and storytelling and singing.”

“Booze? You guys have booze in 2064?”

Jill cackled. “As long as there are people to make it, there"ll be booze. Come on, Glory.

Time to party, Clan-style.”

Glory wasn"t sure what she was expecting from a Clan party, but it wasn"t rotgut

whiskey and the kids dancing while the adults watched with amusement. She walked with Jill to a set of rough benches circling a bonfire and got her settled. It looked like a hundred men were there, mostly prowling around the women from the plane. One of the clan men came over and gave her a wooden cup full of clear liquid. Water? The first gulp singed hairs in her nostrils. While Glory panted in a desperate attempt to keep her eyeballs from exploding, Jill laughed until she cried. One of the little boys from this morning—Singer?—bounced over to Glory and took her hand.

“Come dance, cousin,” he said in a treble voice that bordered on command.

“You"re gonna be just as bad as Shadow someday,” she accused him, setting down her drink with relief. “What kind of dancing?”

Jill waved her off. “Nothing hard. Go and dance with the boys.”

It seemed like every boy under fifteen was in a double line between the fire and the benches, facing a friend or one of the women, and there were a lot of boys. Glory let Singer pull her into the line and waited for the music, expecting powwow drumming. Instead of drums or even guitars or pianos, the boys hummed the music to the Chicken Dance.

“The Chicken Dance?” Glory yelled at Jill.

“Have fun!” Jill yelled back. “You always loved the Chicken Dance, and you know it!”

Well, yeah, Glory did like the Chicken Dance. It was the only dance she"d do at

weddings, and only after she"d had a few drinks. But Singer was having such a good time flapping his arms and wiggling his scrawny butt that she couldn"t help laughing and joining in. After a few rounds they changed partners and did it again. And again. And again, until Glory dragged her partner out and went back to Jill, sweating and panting. She gave the boy—Chase this time—a smacking kiss on the cheek and told him to go have fun. She sat down next to Jill and grabbed her drink. She sipped more cautiously this time, but still felt like the lining of her throat was peeling off like old paint.

“Jeez, what is this stuff?”

“Don"t worry about it. It"ll grow on you.”

Glory was looking at the dancers when she noticed Shadow moving through them toward the women from the plane. Heather wet her lips and gave him an inviting smile, shifting so her practically bare boobs caught the firelight. Glory took a large gulp of her whiskey and hardly wheezed this time. Heather had been a slut in high school and had only become a bigger slut since. Porn movies? Seriously? What a loser. She turned her back and looked around at what else was going on. Full dark had fallen, making it hard to see in the flickering firelight. On the other side of Jill were Arthur Muddy Wolf and Tara. They were sitting side by side, her head leaning on his shoulder with such sickeningly sweet adoration that Glory had to look away. The Clan men—all those who looked to be eighteen or older—seemed to be finding a reason to drift toward the plane-crash women, walk slowly past each one, then move away. Were they sniffing the women? Gross.

Muddy Wolf kissed his wife"s forehead and stood up. “It"s time.” His voice was loud enough to cut through chatter, deep enough to hook the chatterers" attention. “Come close and relax, friends and kin, and hear our history. This is the story of the Wolf Clan for twenty generations. We tell it each time we celebrate to remind ourselves where we came from and to teach our children who we are.”

Oh, goodie
, thought Glory.
It’s story time. And here’s me without my kindergarten nap
mat.
She lifted her cup to the man holding out the bottle for another refill and accepted a blanket from another. Soon she had a couple of little boys sitting at her feet on the ground, and the blanket spread over her knees. Everyone gathered around the fire, either sitting on benches or standing beyond the firelight. She thought Shadow was opposite her, across the fire in the dark where the light didn"t reach, with a dozen other men. Even in the dark she could swear she could see his eyes glowing at her.

“Once, more than two hundred and fifty years ago, the Lakota lived free on the prairie, hunting the buffalo for our food and shelter. We do not have time tonight for a full telling of our history, but you will hear enough to understand who we are.”

Glory sipped from her cup, enjoying the rich sound of Muddy Wolf"s voice. It was deep and formal, and tinged with a hint of an accent. She lost a bit of her abrasive skepticism while she listened to him talk.

“In those days the Wolf Clan was respected. We were part of the tribe, but stood apart from other men, because we were not like them. We were men who held wolves within us from our births, and when the wolf grew strong enough he would burst from our hearts, and then the man would be inside the wolf. Few could stand against a wolf warrior when his wolf hunted. So we became famed and feared by friends and enemies alike.

“And then, two hundred years ago the white man came to the plains. As their numbers grew and their power crushed us to living like beggars on reservations, our wolves weakened until they lived only within our hearts. The Clan was no longer feared and respected except by those few who knew the stories of our heritage. For a hundred years no wolf was known to a Clan man. The stories were still told among the Clan, but no one believed. It was a time of darkness, even though our homes were lit by electricity.

“The Terrible Times began when I was just a boy barely walking. War had come to the cities in the east and the west. Stars fell from the sky and ruined the lands south of us. People fled from their homes, but they were followed by Disease. Disease was greedy for death, and nothing pleased Disease more than striking down women. This disease was called the Woman-Killer Plague. Soon, there were so few women left that men began shutting them up in protected rooms so other men could not steal them. Some women ran away so they would not be imprisoned. That is how the Grandmother came to us. The machines used in the Times Before the Terrible Times no longer worked. People who had been good and loving became monsters during the Terrible Times. My father and mother and other elders of the Wolf Clan decided to leave the reservation to live as our ancestors had here on the prairie. My father, his three brothers and four of his cousins, and all their wives and children became the new Wolf Clan.

“We continued to tell the histories of our Clan, as we do now, tonight. And some of us boys began to hear whispers in our hearts, the whispers of the wolves who had been born within us when we left the white man"s world. When I was fifteen years old my wolf tore free of me like a babe forced from its mother"s womb. Then we knew the Wolf Clan had been born anew. Many of our sons have been born with wolves within them. Our Clan is strong and will grow stronger. Once again we are feared and respected.

“That is the story of the Wolf Clan.”

Glory finished her drink with a feeling of wonder. Muddy Wolf told a hell of a good story. The mellow feeling was ruined by Heather"s little-girl voice rising in the respectful quiet. “So why don"t you have very many women here? You have all these big strong men, but only five women. You men must be…” Her voice dropped to a husky, suggestive tone.

“…very lonely.”

There was silence except for the snap of the fire. Glory glared at Heather. But Muddy Wolf"s voice remained smooth. “Fifteen years ago, while our women and children were bathing in a private bend of the river, men fell upon them to take them away from us. We defeated them but not before they slew our wives and daughters. The Clan"s vengeance is still spoken of today in the towns for hundreds of miles. But vengeance cannot bring our women back to us, and those of us with wolves will wait until our wolf chooses a mate for us. That is why our women are so few.”

Humph. Was the vengeance story a parable or true life? These men looked pretty

harmless. But she was sure they could be fierce if necessary. Glory buried her nose in her empty cup. She was definitely going to need some more of this whiskey. Jill was right; it did grow on a person.

“Excuse me.” This voice was different. Glory looked up and saw one of the plane-crash survivors politely raising a hand like a kid in school. Well, it made sense. She was still in the all-arms and gawky-legs stage of being a teenager. “Excuse me. What exactly do you mean by wolves within you? Is it symbolic?”

Oh, kid
, thought Glory, looking around for the nice man with the big bottle,
that’s the
question we’d all like answered, isn’t it?

It was answered when a couple of the men lingering in the shadows beyond the firelight stepped into the circle of light around the fire and turned into wolves.

Glory blinked stupidly at the big gray wolves, wooden cup dropping from her hand. Oh, shit. Jill and Tara hadn"t been fooling this morning. Oh,
shit
. She looked for Shadow, but didn"t see him. The teenager said in a small voice, “Oh.” And then the screaming started.