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It was the word “Dad” and the familiar scent more than the cold reality of the weapon that gave me pause. If this pup was Stormwinder’s son, then I needed to treat him with kid gloves. No ruptured spleen, no broken bones...nothing more than a little lost face, and preferably not too much of that.
So rather than taking the easy way out and barking the pup into line, I twisted out of his grip. One moment I was captured. The next moment, the pistol was sailing off into the undergrowth as the young male rotated over my shoulder to land with a thud onto his back.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of Junior’s companions shifting into human form and turning toward the spot where the weapon had so recently disappeared. After stilling this second opponent with a curt “Down,” I didn’t even bother to check that my command had been obeyed. It would have been. My compulsions always were.
Instead, I angled toward the third combatant, a wolf who was lunging in my direction with fangs bared and lips curled. Junior still lay between us, but my primary opponent was busy shifting into fur form. In other words, the odds would soon be two wolves against one human.
Might as well join the party.
Slipping shorts down long legs without bothering to untie shoe laces, I stretched my muscles into their new orientation in a split second of fleeting agony. Then I relaxed into the body that was more fully me than any other.
Being wolf felt like coming home.
My animal brain also simplified matters. Friends would greet me with tail up and tongue lolling. Foes curled their lips into a snarl and pinned their ears.
Friends were to be played with. Foes were to be dealt with. Easy peasy.
The alpha’s son was still in the midst of transformation, but his companion fit my mental template for foe perfectly. So rather than wait for my opponent’s attack to hit home, I surged forward in a preemptive counterstrike.
Before the other wolf knew what hit him, my jaws had closed around the side of his throat. Hairs obstructed my breathing as I sought the skin underneath, crunching down as hard as I could. There was no reason to test, to warn. My prey had ambushed me and I planned to end the current struggle as quickly, as efficiently, and as finally as possible.
Then another furry body slammed into my side, sending me spinning in a different direction. Three inches of hide came away in my mouth and I spat out the wafer in annoyance. Growling, I turned to face Stormwinder Junior.
The name caught in my brain just like bitten-off fur currently worried the skin between my teeth. Stormwinder Junior.
I was so deeply entranced in wolf mode by that point that I could barely understand the meaning of the first word. But the second moniker made me think of baby birds and defenseless pups. It also made me consider whether there was something I’d meant to do differently. Perhaps I hadn’t intended to become embroiled in a fight to the death among lesser wolves?
Not that my primary opponent appeared defenseless. His friend whined from the far side of the trail, tilting his head in an attempt to lick at the bloody gash on the side of his neck. But Stormwinder Junior stood stiff-legged and growling as he protected the former with his own lanky body.
In an effort to understand the warning brushing up against the back of my lupine mind, I turned my head to check on the third wolf. The earlier compulsion was already beginning to wear off and this final opponent had mustered enough willpower to begin crawling across the damp leaves away from the battle. I could see metal gleaming near his entirely human hand....
Wait, not metal. A gun.
Abruptly, human memories cascaded through my brain. A company commander shouting orders at a row of raw recruits as they stood at attention in a shooting range. Stooge cleaning his handgun with the same loving care parents lavished upon their firstborn. An instructor telling my group that we were being molded into weapons, but never to forget our true purpose.
“A weapon is only a danger if it’s pointed in an improper direction,” he told us. “Remember that your first and foremost duty is to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. You do that by protecting the innocent and the weak.”
I shook my head in lupine confusion. Stormwinder Junior was neither innocent nor weak. He’d snuck out before dawn with a gun and two lackeys to attack a guest on his father’s land. He’d managed to get the jump on me, which was pretty impressive despite my wandering thoughts. And he’d planned to return home with blood on his hands.
Why, then, was it so wrong for that blood to be his own?
Still, I hovered, not quite ready to pounce and finish the current war. The dueling commands within my own body confused me, so I did the only thing I could think of. I leapt upward into humanity, losing track of my surroundings for a split second as I reached for my greatest weapon—the human brain.
In that instant, Junior struck...but I was faster. His teeth were intended to clench down around my unprotected thigh. Instead, my knee caught the side of his jaw, chipping a tooth and giving the alpha’s son what would likely turn into a colorful black eye.
For my own part, lupine teeth grazing off my kneecap hurt like hell. And yet, my brain was now fully operational, so I understood what my niggling memories had been trying to tell me a few seconds earlier. Junior, more than anyone, needed to leave this field of battle unscathed.
Plus, I’d spent the last eight years eschewing contact with my own kind for the primary purpose of keeping civilian blood off my hands. I wasn’t about to lower my standards due to the aggressions of a trio of overgrown pups.
Initially, I hadn’t wanted to freeze Junior in his tracks because I’d hoped one semi-serious battle would be sufficient to prevent recurrences in the future. Now, though, I was fed up and ready to leave Stormwinder’s territory far behind. So I went for the easy way out.
“Down,” I commanded, smiling grimly as three thuds in quick succession proved that my dominance chops were no worse for the wear. Actually, I thought I might have heard another animal or two falling over in the woods as the waves of alpha compulsion rolled outwards from the virtual equivalent of a detonated land mine.
To my surprise, Junior was able to resist the coercion long enough to shift into human form before he struck the ground. Now the youngster howled out his rage loudly enough to be heard in the next state over. “Let me up so we can fight like men!” he commanded. But his voice broke on the final syllable, proving that my opponent was actually little more than a child.
A child with a powerful father...who I would allow to deal with his own spawn at his own leisure. “Stay,” I added by way of reply, knowing the secondary command would keep my attackers in place for far longer than it would take me to jog back, collect my sea bag, and make tracks out of Stormwinder’s territory.
Because I could smell other shifters in the woods around us now that I was paying attention. Whether they planned to come at me as singletons or in groups didn’t really matter. My extreme dominance meant the males couldn’t resist attacking...and at the same time that they could never win those much-anticipated power struggles.
It was a treadmill I wanted off of. Somewhere, somehow, I’d find a place to exercise in peace. But it wasn’t here. And it wasn’t amid Stormwinder’s pack.
With ears, eyes, and nose alert for further ambushes, I turned on my heel and I ran.
