Wolver's Rescue (18 page)

“
Oh. No. You don’t
understand. Bull and I aren’t ... um... mates?” Tommie wasn’t sure
if that was the right word.

“
If you ain’t, you’re gonna
be. I could see his wolf shining through his eyes, same as I can
see yours. He’s your man, all right, and your wolf knows
it.”

“
No, Cora, he’s not my man.
I’ve only known him for two days. I’ve only known about wolvers for
two days. I didn’t know I had a wolf...” Tommie stopped because
Cora wasn’t listening.

“
Samuel? Did you know about
this?” the woman called out the open window. “You hear what she’s
saying? She’s saying she didn’t know about her wolf.”

Samuel stopped his pacing and trotted back to
the truck. He stuck his head in the window and spoke to Tommie. “I
said Cora would want to hear it, not tell it without me.”

“
I haven’t told her
anything.”

“
Yes you did,” Cora
interjected. “You told me you’d only known about wolvers for two
days.”

“
Good.” Samuel climbed into
the back seat. “That’s as far as I got, too.”

“
How come you aren’t crazy
with it?” Cora asked and Tommie started to laugh.

She spent the next hour telling them about
her life. How different things looked from this new perspective.
More and more made sense and the couple’s questions were
reflections of her own.

“
Sounds like this Gantnor
knew something about us way back then. Did your folks
know?”

“
They loved me.” Tommie was
sure of it, but that didn’t answer the question. “I’m pretty sure
my mother didn’t. My father may have.”

Her mother grew to hate Gantnor as much as
Tommie did and she feared him long before. “It was my wolf who saw
him as a danger first, but I didn’t understand what she was trying
to say. I don’t think my mother ever liked him.”

Her parents had an argument once when she was
very young. She was already in bed and it frightened her because
she’d never heard them so angry before. That was why she remembered
it so clearly. It was about Gantnor, though they never said his
name, and it was about her.

“
We owe him everything we
have,” her father shouted.

“
Then give it back.” Her
mother’s voice was angry. too. “We don’t need any of this. We have
what’s most important and he can’t take that away. We have the
papers to prove it.”

“
Those papers aren’t
real.”

Her mother’s cry had frightened her more than
anything, but the next day, everything seemed normal.

“
Gantnor arranged my
adoption only I don’t think it was legal. That’s what he was
holding over their heads.”

“
No pack’s going to let one
of their own be stolen.”

“
No pack, Samuel, but what
about outcasts or rogues. Who would know? You remember Joe Powell?”
she asked her mate. “They named him after his birth certificate,
not the other way around. His folks started using Powell, too. His
folks were like us,” she explained to Tommie. “Worked day labor,
cleaned houses. Had no papers, paid no taxes. Joe’s folks wanted
better for him, so they found him a birth certificate from a dead
boy. When Joe was our age, he collected Social Security on that
name.”

So maybe Thomas wasn’t a mistake after all
and maybe her adoptive parent’s name wasn’t Bane.

Tommie had more questions about being a
wolver and they had more questions for her, but there were no
answers for the biggest ones. What was her real name? How had
Gantnor found her? And how had she not gone feral?

Bull looked around the encampment and
wondered how the hell he’d gotten himself into this mess. An old
school bus, more rust than yellow, was parked at one end. A pickup
truck, older and in worse shape than the bus, stood at the other.
In between the two was a cluster of tents, older and newer, and
mostly misshapen.

“
You’d be surprised what
folks throw out,” Samuel told him on the ride. “Pole breaks, toss
the tent. Sleeping bag gets a tear, toss that, too. Saw a couple
once had a knockdown, drag-out fight. Up and left the whole
kit-n-caboodle behind and never came back.”

While Samuel had never seen the place, he
assured Bull that it would be a good one. Cora had chosen it and
she knew what she was doing. Bull guessed that she did. This late
in the year, there were few campers in the park and those were near
the entrance to the campground where they had access to
electricity, water and bathroom facilities. The upper area, called
primitive, was deserted, which suited the wolvers’ needs, and as
long as they paid the off-season rate, no one cared how long they
stayed. How they paid for it was questionable.

Samuel shrugged and grinned when asked. “This
and that. We work when we can find it.”

“
What will you do when it
gets cold?”

Another shrug and grin. “Move south or dress
warmer. Move south and it’s gonna cost you. Snowbirds fill the
parks in their fancy RVs. Can’t stay more than a few weeks in any
one place. Go north and you can settle in for the winter with no
one knowing you’re there. You can hunt and fish and pack in the
rest, but work’s harder to find. Wherever we are, it can’t be worse
than where we came from.”

“
How long have you been
living like this?”

“
All my life, though we’ve
only been on our own for six months. Packs like the one we came
from change Alpha’s pretty regular. We had a spate of bad ones,
each worse than the last. Me and Cora decided to head out and a few
more came with us. The Alpha wasn’t happy about it, so we’ve been
lying low, keeping our heads down, under the radar, so to speak. I
don’t know how long we’ll last, but we’re giving it our best. What
we need is a good Alpha to lead us.”

Bull ignored the hopeful look. “What about
you?”

Samuel raised his stump. “I became an omega
the day I did this. I don’t run well as a wolf and I’m not much
good in a fight. How long you think I’d hold the throne.” He
laughed. “Besides, as an Alpha, I’d have to set Cora aside and find
me a Mate. Cora and me are true mated. I couldn’t do it and if I
could, she’d give me twenty-four hours to change my mind and then
she’d kill me.” He laughed again. “She’s the one should have been
born with her parts hanging out instead of in. She’d make a good
Alpha.”

In his travels, Bull had met only one small
pack that lived like the one Samuel spoke of. He’d heard of them,
though. They were gypsies. Their Alpha’s had nothing to do with the
Convocation of Wolvers, and they were viewed with suspicion by most
established packs. Like the old song claimed, they were known as
tramps and thieves and occasionally a whole pack was wiped out when
the thievery drew too much attention, or so rumor claimed.

“
Did you ever think about
settling down in one place, to live in houses, and find steady
work? I’m asking, not criticizing. No offense meant.”

Bull couldn’t criticize. He’d lived pretty
rough himself for a few years when he was young. He’d liked it, but
he’d liked it more when Eugene Begley found him, gave him a
permanent base and training, and permanent employment.

“
None taken. Takes money to
buy land and build houses and packs like ours don’t have any. Me
and Cora thought about it once though, way back when we had a young
Alpha who thought he’d found a way to do it. He said he’d found
another small pack that had land, but needed an Alpha. We had an
Alpha and a Mate, but no land.”

“
What happened?”

There was another shrug and Bull sensed it
was a sad one. “Didn’t work out,” Samuel said, but before Bull
could ask why, they were pulling into the park and the old man was
smiling again. “Here we are, boss. Home, sweet home.”

Cora was waiting for them. As soon as they
pulled in, the bus door opened and she was hurrying to meet them.
She looked expectantly at Samuel and when he shook his head, she
shrugged.

“
Didn’t think you would,”
she said to Bull, “You won’t find Eli unless he wants you
to.”

“
I’ll find him. I always
do.” The words came automatically. At that moment, Eli was the last
thing on his mind.

Cora didn’t argue. “Then you’re welcome to
stay here until you do. I had that set up for you.” She pointed to
a narrow, yellow nylon tent. “It’ll be a bit cozy, but I didn’t
think you’d mind.”

Bull nodded, but he wasn’t listening. His
eyes were scanning the campsite, searching.

Samuel laughed. “Come on, Mama. Bull don’t
need a babysitter and you can harass the man tomorrow. Come on, old
girl, you and I have some catching up to do.” He gave her rear end
a swat. “I’ve missed you.”

Bull didn’t hear them say good night, but he
did hear Cora’s high pitched giggle as the bus door closed behind
them. It made him smile.

He grabbed his gear from the truck and went
directly to the yellow tent. His wolf howled inside him when Tommie
wasn’t there. He moved from tent to tent, quietly searching for her
scent. All he smelled was sex. He wasn’t the only one called to go
over the moon. There were at least four healthy males in this pack.
In the last two tents, he scented cubs ranging from urine scented
pups to the sour odor of adolescent cubs who had yet to learn the
value of deodorant. The last tent belonged to the female, Molly.
She was alone, though Eli’s scent lingered everywhere.

Eli could have been fucking Molly’s brains
out and Bull’s wolf wouldn’t have cared. It was becoming frenzied
in its urgency to find Tommie. Bull raised his head and breathed
deeply. He turned and followed the scent of chocolate.

He found her sitting in a rickety lawn chair
in the woods about fifty yards from the campsite.

“
Enjoying the view?” he
asked quietly. A scrawny looking cedar stood a few feet in front of
her. A torn plastic grocery bag hung from a lower
branch.

She didn’t turn around to look at him. “I
thought wolves were supposed to move like shadows through the
forest. You sounded like an elephant.”

“
I didn’t want to frighten
you.”

“
Too late. You already
frighten me.”

“
Why? You told Cora I was a
big pussycat.” He walked up behind her and laid his hand on her
shoulder. She shivered under his touch.

“
I lied.” She tilted her
head back and leaned against him, her head touching the button of
his jeans. “Do you know the woods aren’t quiet at night? All the
noise scared the shit out of me when I first came out
here.”

“
Then why did you stay?” His
cock had begun to harden with the knowledge she was close the
minute he exited the truck. Now, it swelled painfully against the
zipper of his jeans.

“
Because when they’re making
love, wolvers make more noise than the forest creatures. I felt
like a Peeping Tom. You’re laughing, aren’t you?”

There was no point denying it. Her head was
bouncing with the movement of his belly. “Welcome to Wolver World.
Most of us have a pretty casual attitude about sex, particularly
under a full moon.”

She giggled softly and moved her head to a
more comfortable position, though less comfortable for him.

“
So I heard. I’m glad I
stayed. It’s good to face the things you fear. After a while, I
wasn’t frightened anymore. My wolf liked it, too. She and I are
learning together. We’ve lived in the city too long.”

“
And me?” he asked. “Are you
still frightened of me?”

“
Yes,” she whispered. Her
hand took hold of the one at her shoulder and she held it as she
arose and circled the chair. She was still holding it as she leaned
into him and raised her lips to his. “But it’s good to face the
things you fear.”

~*~

Having ascertained that Bull was as
interested in this sexual interlude as she was, Tommie was ready
and eager for the crushing pressure of his kiss. She’d thought
about little else for the last few hours. She didn’t lie when she
said she felt like a Peeping Tom, but it wasn’t the sounds that
sent her fleeing to the woods. It was her own thoughts of Bull.

Every soft sigh had her imagining his touch
against her skin. Every moan of pleasure became his hands fondling
her breasts. She closed her eyes to the rhythmic sound of coupling
and dreamed of Bull between her legs pumping into her, driving her
to the heights of ecstasy. When her hand slipped between her legs
to follow her desire, she knew she’d reached her limit. She had to
get away before her imaginary lovemaking was overheard.

Her fear was real, too. She understood the
call of the moon and the sexual hunger it engendered. She’d felt it
before and had indulged in it to excess before she went to battle
against the control of the thing inside her. But what she felt in
the past was nothing compared to her feelings now for this man,
this wolver she barely knew.

His kiss surprised her with its gentleness.
He touched his lips to hers and withdrew, touched and withdrew,
attending to the corners of her mouth with tantalizing delicacy
before sucking tenderly at her bottom lip. Her initial tenseness
left her and she followed his lead, teasing and enticing his mouth
with hers.

He pulled her closer. Their hands still
entwined, crushed against his chest. Her body swayed with his to
the music of the forest surrounding them. She floated in his arms,
secure in their strength. Her feet followed the movement of his as
if they’d partnered in this woodland ballroom many times before.
She laughed softly and he chuckled in response when he gently
pushed her away and twirled her under their joined hands.