Fang
Fury carried me forward. I had lost too many people. Brothers and sisters. There one minute and gone the next. The idea that Tori would be waiting with the others when I closed my eyes was too much.
I was going to fucking murder this wolf.
It hadn’t been as easy as I wanted to find the den. I had been looking in the wrong direction at first, into the woods, looking for a burrow or a cave or some natural formation. I hadn’t seen the old shack off in the distance until I had already sniffed every fucking tree in that little copse. His smell was everywhere. He hunted here.
The building was half-standing, part of the roof caved in, one side of the old wooden porch smashed to hell. It looked like it hadn’t been lived in for decades. But it’s where the smell was. It was stronger than ever here, on everything. The big rocks out front, the trees in what would have been the yard.
Didn’t bother knocking.
I burst in, spitting Tori’s clothes from my mouth as I did, tossing them in the corner.
And I took the brute’s shape.
My shout was somewhere between a roar and a scream of desperation. “Where are you, you son of a bitch!”
The place looked lived in. It was actually shockingly clean inside. The doorway that led to the side of the house that was falling apart was sealed off, plastic wrap and garbage bags. It was nice and warm in this section of the house - or it was before I half-tore the door off the hinges. Winter winds swirled behind me as I stood in the front room, steam pouring from my nostrils.
There was a couch, a table with a mason jar of water on it, a little rug on the otherwise bare but very clean floor, and an absurd amount of greenery. Leaves everywhere from potted plants of all kinds - plastic, every one of them by the smell. He had no TV, just a radio where a TV might have been. Two exits to secure from this room, one to the left and one straight ahead. His scent was everywhere. The wolf lived here.
I was too angry then to realize that Tori’s smell was absent.
I stormed through the room, picking the door straight ahead. It was a makeshift kitchen - chances were that the original kitchen was behind that sealed door. A hotplate, a little wood grill, a big bucket of water, and a big cooler. No sign of Tori. Or the wolf. Again, everything was perfectly orderly and tidy.
I whirled and made for the other door. I was mid-step when I realized what had changed.
My body smacked into an unexpectedly large human. Like me, he kept a shaggy beard - his was mostly red, like the rest of his hair, including the big tuft of chest hair. He was in a big, brown winter coat, a pair of ragged gray sweatpants, and nothing else.
I was 6’7” in my brute form. This fella had two inches on me and was built like a damned tank. It took some of the fire from my belly.
His eyes widened and before I could react, he shifted. No way his brute would fit through the fucking door. I had thought myself ready for anything, but this was the biggest fucking wolf I’d ever seen. I didn’t know they came this big.
With one huge hand, he shoved me, sending me careening through the doorway, back into the makeshift kitchen. I fell backwards, crashing into the table and knocking over the bucket, sending water everywhere.
“No!” He shouted, seemingly in alarm as I tumbled. As I expected, he was too big to get through the door, but he could almost reach me anyway. “Go! Wolf! Leave!”
I held up my hands, level with my head, palms facing him. “Whoa big guy. I’m just looking for my friend. Younger girl, white wolf with blue eyes.” Intruding on someone else’s den was grounds for murder. I had been ready to kill whatever wolf was here to rescue Tori, but this wasn’t a wolf.
This was a fucking behemoth.
Those green eyes narrowed at me. “Go!”
“I can’t, Tiny! You’re blocking the door. You gonna let me out?” I stepped toward him, hands raised in submission. My heart was pounding. This guy could rip my arm right off and beat me to death with it, I had no doubt. Taking another step forward cautiously, I was glad for my suspicion. I leapt back just in time, as he made a grab for my leg.
“Go leave go!” He roared, slapping his hand on the ground.
“I’m trying!” I shouted right back at him. “Back the fuck off and I’m gone!”
The little makeshift kitchen had been a den or something - no windows, no other exit except the door that Tiny was blocking. My blood froze as he shifted, the coat and pants dropping to the ground and where the too-large man had been standing was a too-large wolf. His dire was half-again the size of mine. I probably weighed one-fifty in dire, this wolf was two-twenty-five if he was ten.
He snarled, his tail thrashing, fangs bared in a frightening display and those same green eyes glaring at me.
Wolf I do not know, you leave my den now.
It was said with a ferocity to it, the promise of bloody consequences. He squeezed his front half in through the doorway, I had no choice but to back into the corner.
Killer of water. Defiler of den. You leave or die.
“Fuck, man! I wanna leave!” I could back away no further. Shaking in a way that I was very glad Spike wasn’t here to see, I tried to take a step toward him. He snapped at my leg, ready to rip it off. How the fuck was I supposed to leave? Through the wall?
You leave or die. You leave or die. Leave leave leave run.
It clicked. The fucker couldn’t understand me. Shifting, I didn’t bother keeping the dire, I went all the way to wolf, wagging my tail weakly and keeping my head low, licking my chops anxiously.
In my very best Wolftongue, I begged. Weak. No danger. Surrender. Appease. Fear, fear of death.
He stopped, his form shrinking down to what must be his wolf form, damn near the size of my dire. I had no idea wolves even came in this size. There hadn’t been anyone this damned big at the last gathering of Packleaders, and I had been under the impression that attendance was not optional. His lips were still curled back, his tongue dangling slightly between bared fangs.
I did not want to fight this wolf. At least, not like this.
Leave now.
When he stepped out of the doorway, I ran. I ran with everything I had, praying that those jaws didn’t close on me as I passed him. I didn’t look back until I was half a mile from his door. I could see him, barely, back in human shape, cleaning up his little kitchen.
I didn’t stop running until I was back at the den.
* * *
Spike
When I got up at the crack of ten, I was alone. No runt to pick on. No Fang to wrestle with. No Alpha to tell me what to do. I shrugged and grinned, deciding to just do whatever I wanted. I thought for a moment about pissing on Fang’s bed, but my face still hurt. He had covered my mouth with one hand and pinned me against the wall yesterday. Any time I had tried to move, he’d cheated by hitting one pressure point on me or another with his free hand. And when I wasn’t moving, he was punching.
Hit after hit after hit to my face. It was half healed now, but it left me hungry.
I hoped the runt came back soon, though. Fang was worried and that made him mean. Jokes he’d usually laugh at pissed him off, and Alpha was on edge. The last thing I wanted was to piss her off.
I’d seen her tear another wolf limb from limb before. She was Alpha for a reason, and I wasn’t about to challenge her. Things were easier with the runt around, Alpha was generally mad at her instead, and Fang mostly stayed quiet and was fine fucking around playing games with me or cracking stupid jokes or just going for a run.
Fang was my only friend in this world, and I loved that ugly, mangy bastard.
He’d been the one to find me, even though Alpha had been the one to kill the bear that was about to end me. I’d follow her forever for that. Not like I had another choice, being alone sucked. Humans hated me now, most wolves hated me too, not that I ever had a very big fan club.
People just didn’t know how to take a joke.
Scratching my belly, happy to not have anyone around to judge me for five minutes, I wandered over to the fridge. Wasn’t gonna touch Alpha’s beer. Runt was supposed to bring food home last night, but the kid probably fell down a well or something. She was a danger magnet, she managed to find the stupidest ways to get into trouble every time.
And I’d keep kicking the crap out of her until she learned. It was my job, as like, her big brother or whatever. I was an only child, so what the fuck did I know about it, but as far as I was aware, that’s how older brothers acted.
Plus it was fun, watching her get all worked up and angry, all red in the face and stomping those tiny feet. I laughed as I gave up on the fridge, grabbing a can of beans from the pantry. Grabbed a frozen waffle from a half-full box in the freezer and toasted it while my beans microwaved. The best thing about the runt though, was it didn’t matter how bad I roughed her up, she’d be fine in a day or two.
I’d even broken her leg once, felt bad about it and ran off, but two days later she was fine and back to mouthing off. Meant I never had to go easy on her, which made her even more fun. That was probably the best thing about being a werewolf - didn’t need a job, nobody could stop you from taking stuff, and even gunshot wounds didn’t last.
We were basically invincible.
Waffle on the plate, beans on the waffle, I sat on the kitchen countertop and ate. I would have preferred toast, but this was good enough. I’d get real food later, right now I just wanted something in me to make the hunt more fun. Hunting on an empty stomach sucked, and it was winter with a fuckload of snow on the ground.
It wasn’t gonna be easy to find prey.
Might have to eat a human when the pack wasn’t looking, wouldn’t that be awful? I chuckled to myself as I enjoyed my breakfast, until Fang burst through the door, naked with clumps of snow in hairy patches of his body.
This brought me to full laughter, food still in my mouth, spraying a bit of half-chewed bean on the counter. “What the fuck, Fang? You go sleep-hunting or something? You look like shit.”
“Get ready to go.” He pointed at me. He wasn’t laughing, at all. Something was wrong. “What’s up? Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer, choosing instead to leap up the stairs, three at a time. Something was definitely wrong. Setting my food aside, I followed.
There was a crash, the sound of a body hitting a solid surface. That would be Fang’s, no way he had checked Alpha. I poked my head into the room she had claimed, making certain not to step in.
“You disobeyed me!” She snarled, her hand on his neck as she lifted. “You are not the Alpha, I am. I make the decision. I say when we go.”
Fang was sputtering. “You’re right. You’re right, I’m sorry. But we’ve got a problem! There’s another pack here, biggest fucking wolf I’ve seen in my life, boss. I stumbled on his den looking for her.”
Ah, there it was. The dumb fuck had gone looking for the runt. I wanted her back too, but I wasn’t about to ignore Alpha to go looking for her. This was why.
“Did you run straight here?”
Fang was on his toes, grimacing in pain. He’d be fine. “Yes! I need- “
“Oof.” I winced as she threw him to the ground.
Alpha was pissed. She stood over him, saliva spraying from her mouth as she shouted. “You ran from his den to our den?”
I didn’t get what the big deal was, but apparently Fang did when his face went bone white. “Fuck.”
“Yeah fuck.” Alpha spat. She pointed at me. “We go. Now. All three of us.”