Just a Wolf

Amelia

Sometimes, I am starting to learn, people just need some direction. These guys are standing around like they don’t have the first idea what to do. Okay then.

“Theo, can you take Evan down to where the camping supplies are stored?” We were just down there earlier today, pulling out things for the cave expedition. “I’d like a small tent, a sleeping bag, a foam mat, a ground cover, and… um… five of the little light folding chairs.”

If Corinne is waiting for us in the woods nearby, if she is hoping for the mercy of River Moon, for us to find a way to help her, I want to start now. I want her to know that we can be relied on to take care of her. Maybe that will motivate her to provide any additional information our leaders might need. It will benefit everybody.

“Uh, okay,” Theo says, shrugging at Evan. “This way.”

I turn to Dom. “Can you bring those steaks back over here?” I ask, picking up the salad.

He looks longingly at the platter of meat, but he carries it back to the counter for me. I start rummaging in the cupboards, and find an insulated pack to put them in, to keep them warm. Before I tuck them away, I slice off a hearty bite of one of them, and say, “Come here,” with an invitation in my eyes.

His light up. I lift up the bite of meat to his lips, and am going to put it tidily inside his mouth, but he deliberately pulls my fingertips in with it for a second. The touch of his mouth on me gives me a little shiver, which makes him smile as he chews.

“Just an appetizer,” I tell him.

“For more than one thing,” he says, swallowing, and pulling me into his chest. I can’t resist, we hug, and he kisses me, and for a second I forget about every single other thing in the world. We’ve been together almost every minute for the past day and a half, but still, every time he touches me, kisses me, holds me, a feeling of joyful completion fills me right down to my toes.

I hear the other guys coming back up the stairs, and leap back from Dominic, whispering, “Later.” He huffs out a sigh, and adjusts the waistband of his pants, and my gaze drops to see that he is very full there again, obviously horny, obviously needing relief again. I look back up at him, and tell him with my eyes that I’ll take care of that too. “Later,” I repeat quietly. He lets out a very soft groan.

I dump the salad into a container with a sealed lid, do the same for the rolls, and put it all into a big picnic basket. I add napkins, plastic forks and knives and plates, a lighter, and some bottled drinks. I look around, and grab a few apples, two bags of cookies, and a sleeve of bagels. The basket is full.

The table where we had been planning to sit for dinner is now covered with camping supplies. “Give me ten minutes,” I tell them, “I’m going to get her a few more things downstairs.” I’d invite Dom to come with me, but I know that once we get to my room we’d be tempted to never come out again.

I rush down the interior stairway into my room, and start packing a bag with some of my clothing and toiletries for Corinne. She’s taller and thinner than me, but my stuff should fit her okay. I put in a change of underwear, figuring she’d appreciate that, some sweatpants, a couple of shirts, a warm hat and gloves. For some reason I don’t think she’s planning to shift to stay warm. When I asked her about that yesterday she shook her head. I don’t understand why, but if she is staying human she should have some gear. I toss in a clean toothbrush, toothpaste, wipes, a box of tissues, and a couple of other things that might come in handy. Oh, and a pillow, which I grab off my bed. I have spares.

When I make it back upstairs, the guys are just sitting around silently, waiting for me to tell them what else to do. I hide my smile. I look at all the gear, holding the duffle bag with the clothes and pillow. “Okay,” I tell them, “load up, let’s go.”

We can’t shift, we’re carrying way too much stuff, but Evan said she’s only a couple of miles away, and we can jog out there without any trouble in our human forms. Wolves are strong, and we train regularly, so a two mile run is easy.

We get to the gate in the fence behind the packhouse, Theo opens it up for us, and turns to Evan. “Okay, lead on.”

Theo

I am unconvinced of the wisdom of any of this, but I’m going along with it. Amelia seems quite determined to bring all this stuff out to this rogue she and Evan have talked to. It seems preposterous, but on the other hand if the rogue has legitimate information for us, it can only help us in our endeavors. What happens to the rogue afterwards won’t be up to me. I’m just a wolf. The leaders will decide.

It only takes a few minutes to follow Evan out to a little grove of trees sheltering a tiny clearing next to a tall granite wall. There is nobody here, but I can smell the scent of an unknown wolf.

Evan, carrying all five of the folding chairs as well as the bag with the tent, calls out, “Corrine?”

There is no answer.

I look over at Amelia and shrug. We wait another minute, and she says, “Corinne, it’s me, Amelia. We met yesterday. It’s okay, we’ve just brought you some food and stuff. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

Another minute of silence, then we see a figure peek out from behind a tree several yards away. Evan puts down the stuff he’s carrying and slowly approaches. “It’s just me,” he says. “We brought dinner. We only want to talk.”

She steps away from the tree, but then when she gets a look at me and Dom standing here next to Amelia, I see her entire posture change to one of alert, clearly ready to spring away from us.

“It’s okay,” he assures her. “Really. They’re friends of mine.”

She reluctantly follows him back over to us. She is wearing a huge oversized sweatshirt, and I think I know where it came from, remembering Evan showing up shirtless earlier.

Amelia approaches her with a smile, but not too close. “You left yesterday before we got the chance to arrange to talk again. I’m glad you’re here now.” She looks over at me and Dom. “This is my packmate Theo, and my friend Dominic. We’ve brought dinner, mind if we all sit and eat?”

The rogue looks at Evan, who nods encouragingly, so she says, very softly, “Thank you.”

That’s all Amelia needs to manage the heck out of everything else, delegating tasks to the rest of us in a frenzy. In ten minutes we have set up a tent over a ground cloth with a sleeping bag on a mat inside, the duffle bag Amelia carried out is in there, there are five chairs arranged in a circle, around a hastily constructed fire ring, and Dom is lighting some kindling under a pile of wood we gathered from nearby. Amelia starts pulling out the food and disposable dishes, and I’m impressed that somehow the steaks are even still warm.

The four of us sit comfortably on the folding chairs, and after some hesitation Corinne sits on the fifth, accepts a plate from Amelia, and we share a meal.

Amelia directs the conversation, seemingly in a very casual way, but I know her well enough to know that everything she is doing is quite deliberate. We chat about our days, how we spent Christmas, what we think the weather will do, how delicious the steak is, everything except for the situation with the rogue pack and our plans for tomorrow. I see what she is doing. She is trying to make Corinne feel relaxed and safe around us, before trying to get any information out of her at all.

And it seems to be working. The rogue hasn’t really contributed to the conversation, but she has finally relaxed enough to clearly be listening, especially whenever Evan speaks. Her chair is pulled up close to his, and she seems more comfortable with him than any of us.

Good grief, are they having a weird little forbidden romance? Romeo and Juliet wolf style? I wonder what our leaders would have to say about that?

By the time that we have finished the dinner and Amelia busts out a pack of cookies and starts passing it around, it is starting to feel like we are just a group of friends having a campfire together. The smoke spirals up through the trees into the night, giving off its distinctive scent. I’m almost surprised Amelia didn’t think to bring stuff to make s’mores, this scene is so cozy and friendly.

And, the rogue starts to talk. Huddled in Evan’s big sweatshirt, the hood up over her head, her hands bunched inside his sleeves, she looks somehow tiny, and vulnerable. I have to admit that this person is not at all like how I have pictured rogues. I’ve always imagined them as huge, brutish, mindless creatures, bent on violence and mayhem. But she seems so harmless and meek. “Thank you,” she says in a very soft voice. “This is the nicest dinner I’ve ever had.”

“Since you joined the rogues?” Dominic asks, clearly having warmed up to her too.

“No,” she says, “ever.”

Amelia smiles at her. “Well, it’s Christmas dinner. It should be nice.”

Corinne looks surprised for a moment, then a smile flashes across her face, and I am pretty sure that is the first time I’ve seen her do that. I’d be willing to bet it’s the first time she’s had any reason to smile in a long, long time. “Yeah, that’s right,” she says in a tone of slight surprise, then adds, looking around at all of us and her eyes landing on Evan, “Merry Christmas.”

I am hoping this is the opportunity I need to start getting some information, now that the topic of her past life and the rogues has been introduced. “So,” I say, trying to sound casual, “what were dinners like with the rogues, if this is the nicest you’ve had?” I want to guide the conversation back around to learning how the rogues do things. Amelia glances up at me, and I see that she knows exactly what I’m doing.

Corinne looks down. “Oh, uh, we didn’t really have meals together. If there was anything left after the leaders finished, we could have some.”

Amelia’s forehead wrinkles. “Sounds like actual wolves. The animals, not us.”

Corinne shrugs. “I don’t know.”

She’s right, though. We studied natural wolf packs extensively in high school biology, because we share so many traits with the original animal. Our species is a mixture of human and wolf, but many of the baser instincts of true wolves are suppressed for us, because our human reasoning is what rules us, in either our human or wolf forms. But I know that many natural animal predator species have a rigid pecking order, and resources, particularly food, are allocated to the leader first, then down the chain until the lowest rank is allowed to partake. I think that even some werewolf packs operate this way. Not us, obviously.

Evan asks Corinne, “Didn’t you say that some of the rogues were your friends? Did your friends share?”

She gets a little ironic smile on her face. “We didn’t have any choice. If we didn’t watch out for each other, if any of us were lost, it was harder on the survivors.”

Damn. I don’t know exactly what she means, but the rogues sound like beasts. I’m not sure I really even want to know the details.

Amelia leans closer to Corinne, and says quietly, “They sound awful, Corinne. Getting away from them was the best thing you could have done.” Corinne nods, biting her lip, and Amelia adds, “Do you think that your friends there miss you?”

Corinne sighs. “I’m sure they do. Now they have to do everything without me. It’s easier to take turns if there are more to do it.”

Amelia asks, sounding perplexed, “Take turns? Like, cleaning or something?”

Corinne looks at her as though the answer is obvious. “Servicing the leaders.”

I don’t think that Amelia really gets it still, but I think I do. She’s talking about sex. Like, forced sex, required for survival. Servicing. Damn. This is so ugly.

I see that Evan understands also. His jaw clenches, and he says darkly, “Corinne, we have to stop them. We can’t let this sort of thing go on, not anywhere near our territory.”

Amelia nods. “You can help us. If we can find them, we can stop it. It sounds like you and your friends were abused.” Corinne reaches up to wipe her eyes with the sleeves of Evan’s sweatshirt, and she nods. Amelia continues, “Maybe if you are able to help us find them quickly, we can figure out a way to get your friends out too, before they get hurt.”

Corinne whispers, “Is there going to be a fight?”

I’m not going to lie to her. She’s had enough wrong done to her. “Yes,” I say, “truthfully, I think there will be a battle. But if you give us the information we need, I can ask our leaders if part of the plan can be to try to protect your friends.”

Corinne looks up, meeting my eyes for the first time, and nods. “I’ll do it. Anything. Just keep my friends safe.”