Call of the Wild (2 page)

He started climbing down from the tree. She was probably lost and her dog found her. There was no guarantee the dog would be able to help her get home. It was his duty to make sure she got home safely. Girls were so dumb. Luckily, he only had brothers. He jumped the last few feet to the ground, got his bearings, and ran to his bike. Moments later, he was tearing through the trees toward the meadow.

The wind was blowing in his face as he pedaled as fast as he could while staying on the slim trail without taking a spill. Luckily, he was still wearing his bike clips so his pants wouldn’t get caught in the bike chain. He could see a break in the trees up ahead; he was close. All of sudden, he heard a crack and then an echo.
A gunshot! Hunters!

Ditching his bike, he dropped his backpack and followed it, dropping onto the ground to his stomach. He started crawling forward on his belly, using his elbows to pull and the insides of his knees to push him forward. He reached the edge of the meadow and couldn’t see anything; the grass was too tall.

Up ahead, he heard the little girl crying. He stood. He could just barely see the top of the girl’s head. He ran into the meadow toward the little girl. When he reached her, he was shocked. The dog was gone. Instead, lying naked on the ground, was a teenage boy, his chest covered in blood. Sitting on the ground next to him was the little girl, crying. She was also naked. When Aaron’s shadow fell over her, she looked up and screamed.

“It’s okay. I’m here to rescue you. I’m a Boy Scout and everything, honest. What happened to your dog?” he asked, as he crouched, trying to see where the boy was bleeding. He took off his t-shirt and wiped away the blood, getting it all over his own hands in the process. He couldn’t find a wound.

“The bad men killed my mommy and daddy. I ran away and my brother found me. But the bad men are chasing us and they killed Johnny,” she said, as she hiccupped and wiped at her face.

Aaron was about to try to roll Johnny over, when the teenager groaned. He blinked and opened his eyes. When he saw Aaron, he tried to sit up and was only able to move a few inches. The gunshot had struck an artery and he’d had to shift quickly or bleed out. He was young and shifting didn’t come easily; it took a great deal of energy.

“Where are you hurt? I have my bike. I can go for help. I can get my dad,” babbled Aaron nervously. His dad could fix anything.

Johnny looked at the kid crouched next to him. He knew the hunters would reach the meadow at any moment. He was trying to gather his strength so he could lead the hunters away from his sister. They’d tracked him this far and now he was too tired to run much farther. For Kylie, he’d do what he had to. This human boy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t smell shifter on him, but the hunters wouldn’t care, they’d kill him anyway.

“What’s your name?” Johnny asked the boy.

“Aaron Donahue. Do you need me to apply pressure to a wound? Do you need bandages?” he asked.

“I need you to take my sister out of here, fast. They’re coming to kill us,” he got out in a low voice. He grabbed Aaron’s hand and gripped it hard. “I’m trusting you. Take her to our Uncle Jacob. You can’t call the cops. You can’t tell anyone about us or they’ll kill you and your family, too. Do you swear?” He stared hard at Aaron; he would do this last thing. They had no actual uncle named Jacob; it was the boy’s way of describing his pack’s alpha to a non-shifter.

“I swear,” Aaron answered his brain filling up with fantasies of mob hits and witness protection. “How do I find your Uncle Jacob?”

After he got the information from Johnny, Aaron had Kylie climb onto his back piggy-back style and then he ran, stumbling along to the edge of the meadow. He was big for his age; at the same time, he was only three or four years older than her, and she was heavy for a boy to carry. When they got inside the tree line, he took off his sweatshirt to give to her. She had gone quiet with tears rolling down her face.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any shoes for you,” he said.

Kylie looked up at him. “You promised Johnny not to ever tell,” she whispered.

“Yes, I won’t tell anyone,” he said, not understanding what she was saying.

“Then I’m going to call my wolf. And then I can run fast,” she said. Before he could answer, her form wavered and then there was a puppy sitting on the ground next to him.

He thought it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. “Cool! Let’s go!”

He ran to his bike, the puppy at his heels. He dumped out his backpack and held it open. “Come on, Kylie, get in here. Then I can carry you when I’m riding the bike,” he said. After Kylie curled up in the bottom of his backpack, he picked up his bike and started up the trail. When he reached the top of the incline, he looked back.

Back in the meadow, Johnny had gotten to his feet. He saw where the boy had crashed through the grass and headed in the same direction to cover their tracks. He would change direction when he reached the trees to head off the hunters. Just as he reached the trees, he looked up and saw the boy at the top of the trail. He didn’t see Kylie. Their eyes met as another shot rang out, blood spurted from the side of the boy’s head as he fell.

Aaron didn’t understand what he was seeing. He’d never been confronted with real violence before. Dropping his bike, he turned to run back down the hill. His breathing was harsh, and his blood was pounding in his ears. He needed to save Kylie; he’d promised. He wanted to help Johnny and knew he couldn’t go back.

He made sure his backpack was secure. The puppy was crammed inside, whimpering. “Hang on tight, Kylie, we’re getting out of here,” he said, as he got on his bike and went careening down the other side of the hill. He used every bit of skill he had to get as far as he could as fast as he could. He kept waiting for more shots to be fired. He wasn’t aware of the tears rolling down his face as he pedaled.

Aaron would never forget this day. It would be remembered as the day he lost his childhood.

They were early. Laura Donahue hadn’t seen her family in almost three months. She had planned to be on her own for a full six months but she had underestimated both their abilities and their tenacity. She had hoped they’d let her have the six months she’d told them about in her messages. She realized now the way she’d went about disappearing was too much of a challenge. They couldn’t just give in and let it go.
Live and learn
.

Now they were here and it was time to pay the piper. She and her mate had been taking a well earned break from their work in setting up a new national command center for shifters. Laura started calling it Moleville because of the numerous tunnels under the mountain. She was sure they’d come up with some nifty sounding acronym once they were fully staffed. Her brothers were all military and they loved abbreviating things.

In the last two months since she and Alexander—whom she now called by his Russian nickname of Sasha—had mated, the most critical of the intelligence Laura had gathered had been analyzed. One mission had been successfully completed; more shifter deaths had been prevented. Luckily, it had been a small act of terrorism, which resulted in the fledgling force of shifters not running into any difficulties. The party they were having was in part a celebration for the first completed mission. According to intelligence, the next problem was going to be a major engagement against the forces attempting to kill them. This breather after a success was important for morale.

They had delayed the celebration for a week to coincide with her family’s imminent arrival. The sheriff had given them the head’s up on that. Laura just happened to be in the house when they finally arrived. She stepped out onto the deck to see her family all standing there.

It was time to pay the piper. She and Sasha had asked their friends to remain outside while they ushered her family into the main living room.

*****

Aaron was in turmoil. Ever since his sister had disappeared, his father and brothers had dropped everything and put their lives on hold to find her. They had pulled strings and favors to get extended leave from their various branches of the military.

Laura’s parents had worked very hard to finally have a girl. Six boys came first; six older brothers to look out for and protect a fragile, sickly little sister. They soon discovered the baby was allergic to sunlight. She had lived nearly all her life in the remodeled basement of their parents’ house. Halloween was a holiday which took place at night. It was her one and only joyful excursion into the outside world.

Then came the Halloween when she was struck by a car. She’d been confined to a wheelchair ever since, and she had become even more precious to them. All of a sudden she had disappeared. One day she was there, and the next day, she was just…gone. Now they had found her, in the last place Aaron would have ever expected her to be.

A greater shock was that Laura was in the sun and she was standing. Standing! And walking! He was having trouble processing what his eyes were telling him was real. Piling on the stress was the fact they seemed to be surrounded by large predatory animals. Different species, they should have been fighting each other, but they all seemed to be working together. It was almost as if they were guarding Laura’s house. There was a large mountain lion, so close that he could feel its breath.

Aaron kept calm through force of will. He didn’t flinch when the cougar rubbed against his leg. His face showed no emotion as his mind cracked, spewing forth memories long buried and forgotten. As he followed his sister into the house, no one could tell he was holding on to his control, and sanity, by a thread.

Laura walked into an elevator with the large man she’d called Sasha. Aaron and his father followed them in, both of them unwilling to let her out of their sight. At least that large cat hadn’t followed him into the box. If Laura had been hoping for a private word with the man, it was too bad. It wasn’t going to happen. As the doors closed he saw his brothers and that huge mountain lion heading toward the stairs, being led by an older grandmotherly type of woman.

The living room she led them to was large enough to hold everyone, with two long couches and several chairs. It only took a little rearranging of the various conversation areas for everyone to see each other. Laura took one large overstuffed chair and Alexander, or Sasha, stood behind her.

“Laura, is this the guy you wrote us about? Are you sure about him? I hope you checked him out,” Aaron demanded to know. He was practically vibrating with anger, nerves, and who knew what all else.

He hadn’t yet taken a seat; instead, he seemed to want to face off against Alexander. His world was coming apart. More precisely, the world of his childhood was colliding with the carefully constructed world of his adulthood. He was barely holding it together. His general response to fear and stress was anger. He was really angry right now.

Laura just laughed as the cougar, she knew as Marsha, intervened. It leapt up onto two feet. It would have put its front paws up, except Aaron stumbled back. When the backs of his legs hit the couch, he fell to his seat. The cougar’s paws fell to the floor, brushing up against his legs. Aaron didn’t get scratched, mainly because the cougar didn’t have its claws out. Before he could move out of the way, it leapt up on the couch next to him and lay down in his lap, purring.

“What the fuck?” Aaron asked.

His sister just kept laughing.

“Laura, I think it’s time you started talking,” said her father, using his ‘you’re in big trouble now, young lady’ voice.

Before Laura could answer, two other large people came into the room. Aaron thought they had the look of a couple.

“Laura Katushka, are you going to introduce us?” asked Bella Marasov.

“Bella, this is my father, Doug Donahue. These are my brothers, Aaron, Steven, David, Benji, Josh, and Evan. Daddy, I’d like you to meet Sergei Marasov and his wife, Bella. Standing behind me is their son, and the man I love, Alexander Marasov. I’d also like you to meet my teacher, Frieda. I’m so happy you’re all here,” she said, smiling. “Oh, you’re all wondering about the cougar? That’s Marsha Brady, a new addition to our group here. I think she likes you, Aaron.”

Aaron stared down at the large animal draped over his lap. Without even realizing what he was doing, he’d buried one of his hands in her soft fur. His blood pressure had dropped a little. Although he was much calmer, he was still reeling. The flashes of memory bombarding him in his mind’s eye didn’t make sense; he hadn’t yet put them all together.

He watched as Bella Marasov went right over and pulled Doug Donahue into her arms for a hug. Many of the men went on alert when Sergei’s low growl rolled through the room. Bella released Doug and looked at her husband. She admonished him with a spate of Russian, which caused both Aaron and Josh to crack smiles. She turned back to Doug.

“Excuse my husband. Even after so many years, he still gets jealous. Thank you for raising such a wonderful daughter. Having only sons, I’m very much looking forward to having a daughter. And the grandbabies, can you imagine the beautiful grandbabies they will give us?” Bella exclaimed giving him another bone crushing hug.

Doug looked over at Sergei, then over to Alexander and, finally, back to Bella.

“When a man finds the one whom he needs over all others, he’s jealous of any other man being near her,” he said.

For a minute, no one said anything. Everyone there knew how much in love with his wife Doug Donahue had been.