H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (111 page)

Finally, I made it to the highway.

“Sasha, we’ve made it out,” I said.

She didn’t respond. I laid her on the side
of the road and I laid next to her, trying to catch my breath. The
dry, thin air didn’t help my breathing any. The sun blistered down
on both of us and I knew I’d better get up before people thought we
were both hit by a car and called for an ambulance.

I got back to my feet and threw Sasha back
over my shoulder. I headed back to where I had parted ways with
Maya and Josiah. Eventually, I made it back to the area and Maya
and Josiah were standing next to my black Mustang, both of them
looking worried. They saw me stumble up and they both hurried over
to me.

I maneuvered Sasha’s body so she wouldn’t
give Josiah a nice peep show. I wanted to spare her that
embarrassment.

“Is she okay?” Josiah asked.

“No, but let’s get her to my apartment,” I
said.

“You don’t think we should take her to the
hospital?” Maya asked.

It wouldn’t be the first time Sasha and I
had to go to the hospital. This time it would be for her, not me.
“I doubt she has any kind of insurance,” I said.

“They will still treat her,” Maya said.
“She’s severely injured. By federal law, I don’t think they are
allowed to turn her away until she is at least stabilized.”

“All right,” I said. “Josiah, Google the
nearest hospital.”

Josiah took out his phone and fiddled around
a bit to get connected to the internet. “The closest hospital is
Arrowhead Community Hospital. It is about 15 minutes down the
mountain.”

“Thanks, Josiah, that was fast.”

“Hey, man, when it comes to the ladies… I do
everything fast.”

I gave Josiah a look as if to say that
wasn’t the smartest thing a man could say, but this was too
important of a moment to get too silly and start ribbing him. “Good
job, Josiah. It’s nice to know you’re good for something.”

The four of us got into my Mustang and we
headed for the hospital.

* * *

We took Sasha into the emergency room at the
local hospital in Arrowhead. She regained consciousness after they
put an I.V. in her arm and she got some fluids in her.

We needed to get her to my apartment
quickly, before dark. There were two more nights of the full
moon—technically, there is only one full moon a month, but the day
before and the day after it were also werewolf time. I wasn’t sure
how we were going to deal with the cage-in-the-apartment situation,
now that there were two werewolves in the apartment. I figured
tonight it was going to have to be a cage for two. I wasn’t sure if
that was the safest idea. I had no idea what my temperament was
when I changed. How primal were werewolves when they turned? I
didn’t want to kill her in the cage, or possibly do something even
more disturbing. I had no recollection of what had happened when I
had turned the night before. I’m not sure if we would attack each
other in such close quarters.

First, they needed to release her to our
care. I was right about her not having any type of insurance.
Unfortunately, we lived in a day and age that it was a primary
consideration for profit-run hospitals to make profit their
priority. They were only required, as Maya had said, to keep
uninsured patients until they were stabilized. And then, kicked to
the curb, to whatever motley, ragtag, bloody, scratched and
shirtless hooligan who wanted to claim the injured patient and
whisk her out of their sterile-draped ER cubicles. So, when she had
a blood pressure that was deemed stable, the hospital released her
to our care. The X-rays had showed that she had no broken bones.
She only had sprains in her legs and ankles. There was no
structural damage in either leg. That was very good news. I felt
sorry for Sasha. She really didn’t have anyone else but me. I had
become her only family. I felt she had become my responsibility. At
least, in the meantime, I wasn’t sure how cool Maya would be about
me nursing a female friend back to health.

The next order of business was to feed the
teenage garbage disposal that we had brought along for the trip.
Josiah ate an excessive amount of food, but to the kid’s credit, he
worked out all the time and burned calories at an enormous rate. As
far as I could tell, the kid didn’t have an ounce of fat on his
body.

We stopped at a Norm’s in Riverside and let
Josiah devour about 4,000 calories worth of flapjacks, hash browns
and bacon. He put away food more food than a family of four. The
rest of us ate pretty light. My stomach wasn’t feeling right and
the last thing I wanted to do was fill up.

I dropped off Josiah at his parents’ house
and reassured him of the secrecy that we all had shared up in the
mountains. He didn’t perceive anything in the paranormal sense, but
he had every right to question what the hell a grown woman was
doing out in the middle of brush in the heart of San Bernardino
Mountains. To my surprise, he didn’t ask too many questions. We
just told him that Sasha got real drunk and walked off. Sasha was
okay with a teenager thinking she was a lush, because he couldn’t
exactly know the truth, that his friend and his friend’s friend
were members of an elite club that I jokingly thought of in my head
as “The Real Wolfpack.” The last thing any of us wanted to do was
to get Josiah involved in all of this…paranormal activity.

I had a feeling that compromising the truth
about being a werewolf was something I was going to have to do
quite often. When needed, I was going to have to stretch the truth
for my own safety, security, and well-being. I sure didn’t want to
end up as the feature story on that crazy news network that leads
with what bleeds or restrained to a bed in a county psych ward.

When we got back to the house, we all went
over the details of the night that was in front of us. We agreed
that if she had to, Maya would let Sasha out of the cage for her
own safety if Sasha and I decided to fight inside the cage. I hoped
there were similar instincts that werewolves had that were similar
to humans and if I was comfortable with Sasha in my human form,
then I should be okay when I turned into a werewolf.

“I’m not worried, Tommy,” Sasha said. “This
isn’t the first time I had to share a space with a fellow
Carni.”

“Yeah, but this is the first time you will
ever share a space with a Carni who is a professional fighter. My
animalistic instincts are to fight. I’m hoping my paternal
instincts will take over and I will protect you, rather than hurt
you, or—”

“—We’ll be fine,” she interrupted me.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Sasha.

“Well, aside for some cuts and bruises, I
feel all right. My legs are still pretty weak. And I am sure
thirsty, despite the I.V.s they stuck in both arms.” She winced and
pulled off the surgical tape and cotton from inside her elbows,
looking with a grimace at the swelling and bruising. “Ow,” she
said.

I nodded my head at Sasha. “We’ll get you
taken care of. I have a stash of Gatorade and other electrolyte
sports drinks. Do you like that kind of stuff?”

“Yes, please. Like four of them right now,
any kind, would be good,” Sasha joked.

I looked at Maya and asked. “Are you okay
with all this?”

“We don’t really have much of a choice. We
didn’t have time to go anywhere else.” Maya’s face didn’t assure me
that she was okay with this at all. But she was such a good sport
that she just rolled with bizarre shit like this. Even if it
internally rubbed her the wrong way.

“You’re an amazing person, Maya,” I said, as
I prepared the cage. I tried to make sure that Maya knew that she
was still my woman. I had spent a lot of time on Sasha and my
wolfie senses indicated an annoyed scent coming from Maya. We had
30 minutes before the full moon would be out and we needed to make
sure everything was okay.

Soon, the full moon was upon us and Sasha
and I were already securely locked in the cage.

The night was a blur, but I had flashes of
recollection. Unlike the night before, in which I remembered
nothing, I could remember seeing the bars from inside of the cage
and howling. I didn’t say that I remembered key events about the
night, but at least I remembered something.

I woke up and I was on top of Sasha’s sweaty
body, possessive and protective. Uh-oh! We were both dripping wet
but still had on our shorts and T-shirts. Whew!

The clock read 6:30 a.m. I looked to the
left side of the room. Maya was asleep in the recliner.

“Maya,” I called out in a cross between a
whisper and a bellow. “We’ve changed back to bipeds. I need to pee
real bad. Can you open up the cage?”

Maya opened her eyes, and slowly moved her
body over to the cage, grabbed the keys that were on the counter
and let me out. I ran to the bathroom and relieved myself.

I came back out and covered Sasha with a
blanket. She was still asleep and I didn’t want to bother her.

Maya and I left the living room and made our
way to the bedroom. As we entered my room, Maya said, “You and
Sasha can no longer stay in your apartment when you turn, Tommy.
How the police didn’t show up last night is beyond me.”

“We were loud, huh?”

“No, you were loud. Poor Sasha’s whining and
whimpering was drowned out by your howl.”

“My howl was loud?”

“Off the charts loud. Suicidal Tendencies
speed metal loud. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst of it
was your constant barking and yelping.”

“But, was it sexy? That is the real
question.”

“Yeah, you were all about the sexy last
night,” Maya said. “But that had nothing to do with the noises you
were making.”

“Please tell me we didn’t do anything
physical? Me and Sasha?” My stomach sank.

“By physical, do you mean did you sniff
Sasha’s butt all night? Your nose was a very bad boy last
night.”

“My nose?” I took off my clothes and wrapped
a towel around me to take a shower.

“Your nose was one kinky exploring machine.
I kept poking you with the broom, trying to make you stop. One
thing was for sure. Whatever odor that was coming out of Sasha’s
butt seemed to delight your senses. You couldn’t get enough of
smelling her. It was like you tried to suck her butt up your
nostrils.”

I felt myself blush. “But nothing sexual
happened?”

“Not when I was awake.”

That relieved me. “Well, let’s just assume
it didn’t.”

“Tommy, the truth is, that didn’t bother me
nearly as much as you yelping all night.”

“I thought you said it was sexy?”

“Your howl is sexy. Your yelp reminds me of
an oversized Chihuahua’s bark that annoys you to no end with its
constant noise.”

“So, there is a difference between my howl
and bark?”

“Yes, your howl comes from a deep place
inside your soul. It’s a melodic sound and it stirs up emotions
when heard. Your yelp or bark sounds like a bitter old junkyard dog
that has nothing better to do than to snarl and growl. You’re going
to have animal control out here if you spend another night here as
a werewolf. You’re far too loud for an apartment.”

“Where should we go?”

“The only place I can think is your
grandmother’s cabin. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

“What about Sasha?”

“What about her? Do you plan on taking care
of her forever?”

Oh shit! Maya was claiming her turf, which
was me. And not subtly either. I looked at Maya, and thought about
Sasha, who was still passed out asleep in the middle of the cage.
“So, you’re sure nothing weird occurred last night, other than some
butt sniffing?”

“It was constant butt sniffing. At one
point, you rested with your nose about a half inch from her tush.
Really Tommy, you were so gross!”

“If nothing sexual happened, then why should
we be separated?”

“You don’t leave the poor girl alone. You’re
loud and predatory. In her werewolf form, she is very submissive to
you. I feel bad for her. She spent most of the time showing you her
belly and tucking her tail between her legs, whimpering and
whining. I’m sure she was miserable.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yes, it was. You were. We need to figure
out a way to have you not be in the same spot as her.”

I looked at Maya and a part me felt as if
the real place that all of this concern was coming from was
jealousy. She was obviously irritated with my werewolf behavior. It
was one thing to be in charge of my actions when I was a human, but
now I had to apologize for things I did when I couldn’t even
remember my actions. “Look Maya, I’ll do whatever you think we
should do. This whole thing is weird for both of us. But we are
going to have worry about next month. We aren’t going to have
enough time to figure something out today. Let’s rent a U-Haul
truck and haul the cage up the mountain to the cabin. That is going
to be a task in itself.”

Maya smiled at me. “You’re right, nothing
about this conversation is normal. Not by a long shot.”

* * *

Sasha eventually got up and got ready. She
moved around really slow and who could blame the poor girl after
the abuse she received a couple of nights ago. The fact that she
was moving around as well as she was surprised the hell out of
me.

I showered up and the three of us rented a
U-Haul and brought the cage up to my grandmother’s cabin. I dragged
it up into the house with very little help from the two girls. But
I put it in the room to the left of the door. It was an empty room,
so now it was designated as ‘the cage room.’

We spent all day moving and getting the cage
into the space. I bought weights and locks to keep it locked down.
Time got away from us and even though Maya didn’t like it, Sasha
and I were going to have to share a cage on the third night. Maya
and Sasha weren’t BFF’s but they got along. It was interesting to
have two beautiful girls at my disposal. I cared for both deeply,
but in two completely different ways. Soon, Sasha and I made our
way into the cage and we dealt with the third night of the full
moon.