Just a Wolf

Beta Nolan

“Okay,” I tell Evan, sitting with me in the back seat, “here’s the plan.” I hold out a map, a smaller version of the big one that the rogue marked for us yesterday. That map is packed up in my bag. “We’re planning to visit ten caves. The rogue has marked a dozen, and we already explored one.” Alpha Ross is twisting sideways in his seat to watch, and I know Dominic is listening, eyes on the road as he drives. “We’ll start with the one furthest east. Just keep driving on the 299, Dominic, it’ll be about three hours before we turn.” He nods.

Ross tells them, “We figure we can get two done today, three each tomorrow and the next day, then two the last day before we head home for the mating ceremony. We’ll work our way back west as we go.”

Evan asks, “Isn’t that only eleven, though?”

The Alpha says, “Yes. Our goal is to identify and scent mark all but the final cave. The rogue said that there is one quite close to Arcata, and that is the one she anticipates the gang going to next. We’ll leave only that one open to them. It will make it easier to locate them, and isolate them, when it is time for the battle.”

It is a good plan. We will both confirm the accuracy of the rogue’s information, and gain a better understanding of the network of caves. Our scent marks will be left as a strong warning for the rogues. By this they will know that we understand their whereabouts, and that we claim each location as pack territory. Whether they ignore the warning is up to them. With any luck, they will congregate only in the final cave, the last one that we will not touch near Arcata. It will be the only one not claimed by our scent markings.

While our group is identifying the caves, the people remaining at River Moon will be trying to obtain any additional information possible from the rogue. I told my assistant to monitor her carefully, and keep track of any remarks that she makes which might be useful to us. Details regarding the routines of the rogue gang will assist our plans.

Most especially, we want to see if there is any way to access the cell phone which the rogue had left behind in the first cave we explored. It is password locked, and we don’t want to make too many wrong attempts to guess the password, and have the phone be disabled by the automatic security software. If the rogue can provide a password, the data on the phone could be invaluable. We have left it at the River Moon packhouse, turned off just in case any of the other rogues have apps that could track its location. That won’t be possible as long as the phone stays off. We’ll only turn it on if we think we have a plausible password to use, and once we get into it we will block location services so the rogues can’t track it. We are trying to be as meticulously careful as we can in the endeavor to eliminate the rogue threat.

Ross and I continue discussing strategy for the rest of the ride. Evan makes the occasional remark. Dominic is silently listening, focusing on his task as the driver, while the River Moon car follows behind us. I guide him along the side roads that we have determined would be the best route to the general location. When we get as far as we can go along actual roads, I have him pull over.

We leave the cars a ways off the road, pack our clothing into light carrying bags, and shift. It’s uncomfortably cold to be briefly naked and exposed in our human forms, but this is the only feasible way to accomplish our goal. We know that the best way to pinpoint the location of the cave is by tracking the scents left behind by the rogues, a task best done in our wolf forms. Besides, we are warmer as wolves than we would be as humans even dressed in many layers. We fan out, sniffing across the area, until we come across a rogue scent, and follow it.

The scent meets another, and another, until there are many scents converging on a common area, just as we detected with the first cave. When we get to the point that it appears we must be very close to the cave entrance, we shift back to our human forms and quickly get dressed. We begin investigating the immediate surroundings. It is not a rocky hill like the first cave was located in, so we are trying to understand where the cave entrance must be.

After a few minutes, Evan says, “Look!” He is pointing to a rock formation a few feet high, and I don’t see anything particularly unusual about it. “Come over here,” he says, and we cluster behind him. He points again. “See the wolf head?” he asks. I look again, and yes, I see that the top of the rock is shaped a bit like a howling wolf. Cute, but not particularly meaningful.

Except that he goes on, “Corinne told me that there is a rock shaped like a wolf head just to the left of the entrance.”

Oh. So we search again, and soon enough, to the right of the wolf-shaped rock, concealed behind a thicket of brush, is a small opening in the ground.

Ross looks at our driver. “Dominic?” he says. “Want to give it a try?”

The young man nods. He has been quite silent throughout this day so far, but I don’t think he is a particularly talkative person. He takes a headlamp out of his bag, straps it on his head, peers into the hole, then makes his way in feet first.

“Careful,” Ross cautions him. Dominic moves gradually further into the hole, finally slipping entirely past our sight.

“You okay down there?” Evan asks.

We hear his voice from within. “Yep. It’s smaller than the other one, at least here at the entrance. The tunnel to get in is pretty much a straight incline down, not a steep dropoff. Everyone will fit if you want to come in.”

“All right,” Ross says. “I want us all down there, then we’ll shift and mark the area as wolves. We don’t want to spend much time actually exploring the cave. We just want it clear that we are claiming the area, both inside and out.”

Once we are all inside the cave, we look around with interest in the light from our headlamps. The entrance room seems rounder than in the previous cave, but there is an apparent lava tube tunnel leading off to the side. We do not explore, other than to briefly examine the rogues’ belongings that have been left here, clothing and bedding and some water and food supplies. We do not find phones or anything else of use.

Then we each shed our clothing, shift to our wolf forms, and mark the cave. We accomplish this as all wolves do, with small sprays of urine along the edges of the area, making it very clear that this cave is claimed as our territory. We shift back to human long enough to make our way out through the entrance which would be too small to accommodate our wolf forms. Then we shift again, to mark a wider area outside the entrance. The next time the rogues come here, they will detect the scent markings of seven pack wolves, and know that they have lost this territory.

It is a time-consuming process, shifting back and forth, marking, exploring. It is already mid-afternoon by the time we are done, and we still have another cave to locate and mark today, if we are to stay on schedule. We will. We’re getting this done.

Amelia

We said our true goodbyes to each other before we came upstairs. Our time in the shower, open to each other in every way, made me feel so much closer to him, physically, emotionally, spiritually. We are fated mates, soulmates, and I feel that to my very core. When he gets back, I will be ready to finalize this.

I will miss him for the next four days, and I know he will miss me. I will long for him, I will want to be engulfed by his delicious scent, and hear his voice, will want to feel his arms around me, his lips on mine, his fingers….

But, we will endure. As Darlene endures the absence of her mate, so I will endure mine. They have the advantage of having completed their bonding process, but Dom and I are very close. My fingers brush against his almost-mark on my throat as I watch him drive away from me. I feel a longing, and I don’t know how much of it is mine, and how much is coming from him.

When Darlene comes over, her eyes are on my throat, and I’m sure she can see the hickey there, and that she knows exactly what happened. But we won’t really be able to talk about it. Our friends understand that Dominic and I have a relationship, but Darlene is the only other person who knows that we are mates. And I know she’ll keep my secret. Just for another four days.

I’m ready to face it. I have plenty to keep me busy, there is so much to do to get ready for New Year’s Eve. I’m glad that Darlene invites Corinne to join us, too.

The last thing Michael told me before they left was to spend as much time with Corinne as I can, questioning her. The rogue, he called her. I think that’s all the leaders see her as. Just a rogue. Except Darlene, of course, who is possibly the nicest person I’ve ever known. She calls her Corinne.

We go up to the guest Alpha quarters to get to work. We didn’t get the chance to do much more yesterday than discuss menus, but there is a lot more to coordinate. We have time, though. We’re getting this done. I’ll need to make a bunch of calls later to vendors to make sure that the orders we placed will be delivered. I plan to make lists of all the wolves in the packhouse, to assign them duties for the day before and the day of the ceremony. We must clean and prepare the entire packhouse, help with the decorations and food, and a million other things. We’ll also have to set up all the chairs and canopies out on the lawn for the actual ceremony.

Especially the canopies - the extended forecast indicates that our run of unseasonably warm weather is coming to an end, with cold temperatures and precipitation expected. It’s possible it could actually be snowing, even down here by the coast. At higher elevations it is almost certain, which means that poor Dom and the other men will be cold as they locate all the caves. They’ll be fine, though, their SUVs have four-wheel drive, and they packed plenty of gear for any weather. And, of course, they’re wolves.