Gwen
The brute kept walking toward me stubbornly with an outstretched hand. My mouth felt unbearably dry as I began reloading. I wasn’t ready to die. Victoria dropped to her knees, an ever-quieting stream of swearing spilling from her lips, “Fuck… Fuck, just give me… “
I could barely hear her over the sound of my own blood thundering in my ears. I leaned against the wall for support, watching the monstrous girl flop bonelessly to the ground. I was scared to move, scared that I had mixed the tranquilizer wrong, that she was faking, that I would step forward and she’d grab me.
Those few heart-pounding moments seemed to stretch on forever, until her body began changing, shrinking back down to the small size she had been at the market.
“Fucking hell.” I breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t get back up - I’d seen Riggs seemingly get knocked out in a sparring match once, only to pop up again, woken by the pain of the transformation.
Now I was left with a naked girl on my floor and a busted front door during a snowstorm. The temperature in the house was dropping fast, wisps of white dancing through the front door and onto my floor. I pulled the dart from Victoria’s arm, checked her pulse and her breathing, checking to see if anything was off. Thankfully, everything seemed normal - for a tranquilized werewolf, anyway.
With a sigh, I made my way to the fridge and grabbed a beer, popping the top and returning to the living room. In that moment, I just didn’t have the energy to do anything but sit, drink, and look at the chaos my desire to protect people had brought into my home. This wasn’t how I wanted this situation to go, I was expecting her to come knock on the door rather than attacking my truck. She had knocked, all right. Knocked a big divet in my living room floor.
Maybe I was just too used to River’s pack.
I had been right to challenge Victoria, however. She was dangerous, to herself and to others. My front door was stark proof of that. All I had done was call her a runt - I had given her a good fifteen minutes to come back and talk, but she hadn’t shown and the snow had been falling harder.
Throwing my head back, I poured the last of the drink down my throat before setting the empty on the table next to the couch. I propped up the door, blocking the gaping hole in the front of my house at least somewhat for the moment, reinforcing it with the heavy oak coatrack that had been standing next to the door as long as I could remember.
The fix was far from adequate, I knew I’d have to come back and come up with something better, but I had a more pressing concern.
A werewolf that was willing to break into peoples’ houses, shift in public, and likely had never had anyone to guide her.
There’s no way she has a pack, no packleader would let her run wild like this.
Victoria was practically feral. And light, it turned out. I tossed her over one shoulder easily, taking her into the kitchen and to the heavy, reinforced steel door. Well, mostly steel - it had a fair amount of silver for obvious reasons.
To keep a wolf inside.
I tapped out the code - I went down there several times per day, but this was the first time the basement had been used for its intended purpose since I was a kid. Her naked body tensed and twitched in my arms, startling me as we stepped over the threshold. Honestly, I was glad nobody in town really came for social calls. It would be hard to explain the main room of the basement if it ever came up.
The lights flickered to life - it was much cozier now than when I had inherited the place. Had better insulation, bookshelves lined one side, and my reading chair sat in one corner, a plush couch along the wall next to it. I had painted the walls a nice, forest green that made the place feel calmer, safer. I’d perhaps invested more than I probably should have down here, but I could never just… get rid of it.
Not when I swore to him on his deathbed that I would help out if the wolves started getting sick again. Not when his dying words to me were setting me on his path.
No matter how much effort I put into making the place more comfortable, there was no getting around the fact that the majority of the main room was taken up by a large, impossibly heavy cage. A werewolf in a rage could bend steel, this was a tungsten carbide alloy, designed for exactly this purpose.
Well, close enough to this purpose.
As gently as I could, I knelt down and laid Victoria on the velvety soft bottom of the cage, sliding her along and maneuvering her limbs so she was in completely.
She looked peaceful in her involuntary slumber. Her skin was tanned, her breasts perky, honestly I probably had more body hair than she did, which was odd. I was never the type to waste a lot of time shaving my legs though.
She’s actually quite pretty when she’s not snarling…
Hardly an appropriate thought for the situation. Shaking my head at myself, I stepped over to the workbench. I had taken my oath seriously when I swore to Granddad, I meant it. I had spent my time studying his journal, his notes, and learning everything I could. Shuffling a few things around, I found it - still plugged in.
A heavy metal collar.
Hopefully it was strong enough that Victoria wouldn’t be able to break it, but I hadn’t exactly gotten many chances to test it. I had once jokingly-but-not asked River’s pack if someone was willing to test it out, and that was the least welcome I had ever felt around them. I considered them good friends, we spent every summer together, after all. Had been since I was a kid, though a few packmembers left, occasionally a new one joined. We helped each other out, but that request was a bridge too far for them.
I tapped the battery compartment and sighed.
There was no choice in this matter. She was a wild, lone wolf and she was a danger to herself and others. She had to be taught. I wasn’t sure how long the battery was going to hold out, and as I knelt down next to her in the cage, I hoped that she wouldn’t test its limits. If my designs were right, it would help keep me safe while I helped her find the right path.
Grabbing a couple bottles of water and a bag of jerky, I set them in the cage before I quietly eased the door closed and locked it. Seeing her in there, pretty and peaceful, with that steel band around her neck… it stirred something in me.
Something I knew I had to ignore.
Making my way upstairs, I activated the various safeguards that I never really expected that I’d ever use.
I had a door to fix.
And it took a lot longer than I thought. The door was cracked most of the way through it, the hinges had essentially exploded, and the deadbolt had torn out a good chunk of the doorframe. Victoria might not have been the biggest wolf I had ever seen, but a werewolf was still supernaturally strong.
I had some thick plastic sheeting in the garage, some duct tape from the workshop out back - which wasn’t pleasant to fetch in a snowstorm - and after a lot of swearing at being unable to pull the plastic taut enough the first dozen times, I eventually got a good seal around the doorway.
Some heavy blankets nailed to the wall above it, draping down over the plastic would help keep out the chill. I wasn’t happy to drive nails through otherwise nice blankets, but it was necessary and I didn’t use the precious quilt that Granny had made for Granddad before she passed.
A fire in the fireplace got the room back to a reasonable temperature.
Once I was sure we weren’t going to freeze to death, with resignation that I wouldn’t have a front door for a bit, I made my way back downstairs.
My heart froze in my chest when I saw Victoria laying exactly where I had left her.
Shit, did I kill her? The tranquilizer should have worn off by now…
It was unlikely to be a trap, right? If she had woken and was playing possum, she wouldn’t be in the exact same position, right?
Adrenaline coursed through me as I reached through the bars to check her pulse, knowing that she could tear my arm off… a long, weary exhale came from me at the realization she was still breathing, still had a healthy pulse.
I need to recalibrate the dosage in the gun. Later.
I knew that for now, I had to try and get some rest. I made my way upstairs and laid on the couch, in a room that no longer felt perfectly safe and comfortable anymore. She had invaded my home, she had proved that my door was nothing at all to a wolf. She certainly wasn’t big and bad.
Naughty, maybe.
I stifled a chuckle at the thought, but Victoria certainly wasn’t a large specimen. The door was reinforced, but only to human standards. She had torn through it in no time.
It was unsettling.
Thankfully, eventually, the scent and crackle of the fire and curling up under my precious quilt, I nodded off.
I had a feeling it was going to be a long night.