The Legend of the Werewolf (10 page)

Mike shook his head, eyes moving from
Brock to Westley and back to her. "I never put it together earlier
when I was told I was on a ranch. I thought animals and
werewolves...how can you—?" He stuttered.

Oh, so that was it.

Westley reached down and stroked the
head of one of the miniature's that refused to leave Brock alone.
"Lots of hard work and patience. We don't normally buy new animals
because it's so hard to get them used to us. Every horse you see
here, including the ones you don't, were all born here. They don't
mind that we're werewolves."

Anne smiled. There were few things that
could get Westley to talk so confidently like that. His horses were
one of them.

"Gordon's loaded," she explained, not
afraid of sounding blunt or embarrassing Westley. It was simply a
fact that everyone in the area knew about.

“
He can afford to keep this ranch
running, even though it operates at a loss for the most part. But,
he gets amazing tax breaks because of all the donations he makes.
Some of these little guys are going to be trained to act like
seeing-eye-horses for the blind. Others will go to nursing homes or
children’s hospitals. Some are sold as pets."

Mike stuck his own hand through the
fence to scratch under the chin of the fearless miniature. "That's
amazing."

Even though it wasn't her ranch and she
only worked part-time here, Anne still felt a swell of pride in her
chest at the genuine awe in his voice.

When Mike pulled his hand away, Westley
continued to idly stroke the little one's head, not looking at
either of them.

She knew where his thoughts went. Her
heart reached out to him. "Chris will get here just fine. Don't
worry."

"He should have been here by now. He's
a flyer."

"You all must be pretty good friends,"
Mike commented.

"Very good," Westley answered softly,
still not taking his eyes from the little horse nudging his
leg.

Not knowing what to say, Anne decided to
let Westley in on their plan. She just had to figure out how to
remove Brock first.

"Hey, listen, Brock, there're two of us
watching him now. If you want, you can go and catch a nap or
something."

Jaws lifting in a dog-smile, he wagged
his tail and yipped before trotting off. The sound didn’t even
scare the babies that were so close to him.

A sting of guilt pierced Anne’s chest.
Brock was so gullible, that had been way too easy, but, again, she
wanted him to have deniability in everything she had to say. When
she was sure he was out of hearing range, she told Westley what her
plan was.

His face didn't light up like she hoped
it would. "That saves you, but he'll still find a way to marry me
off."

"Not if I tell him not to," Mike
said.

Westley shook his head. "Getting him to
let her out of this marriage is pushing it enough. No matter what
everyone else thinks, there's no way he'll change his mind about
me. The rest of the pack will agree with him on that
part."

Mike cocked his head. "Why are you so
sure of that?"

Anne grabbed Mike's arm. "Listen, we
should try to find that stone."

"Dad has it," Westley said. The miniatures
around him scurried off to play since his attention wasn’t entirely
fixed on them any longer.

Mike hissed through gritting teeth.
"Perfect."

"He might not be guarding it," Anne said,
remembering how he slammed it on the coffee table before leaving to
phone other members of the pack.

She could have kicked herself. She
should've taken it then. She’d been so mad, she just wanted to get
out of there. “I think it's in his living room. We could just walk
in his house and take it."

Westley raised an eye at that, as
though the concept hadn't occurred to him that his own father could
have something so valuable and just leave it lying
around.

He jumped over the fence in one
graceful leap, not even disturbing the grass on his landing. "You
two stay here and watch the horses. I'll run over and get it. If he
catches me then at least he can't be mad about it."

"Good idea."

Westley was already up to Gordon’s
house, leaving her and Mike alone.

She looked up at him and he turned his
eyes down to hers. With no one between them to babysit or make
conversation, they stared silently.

Anne's skin hardened and pebbled into
goose bumps. She blushed and looked away; into the trees, at her
shoes, anywhere but at him.

It was the forbidden fruit thing, it had
to be. She couldn't have him so, naturally, she wanted him, even
though she barely knew him.

As though sensing what road her
thoughts travelled on, he leaned against the fence. He relaxed that
muscular body of his against the wood and quirked his lips, his
eyes half lidded.

She couldn't take the way he kept reading
her. It made her skin shiver, like she was jotting her own thoughts
down and handing them over to him. "Are you psychic or
something?"

His body tensed like a steel beam,
unwelcome surprise took the place of his look of seduction.
"What?"

She didn't know how to take his sudden
change. "Just asking, I didn't mean—" A curtain lifted inside her
mind and the big picture revealed itself.

He stood in the daylight, which meant he
couldn’t be a vampire. He wasn’t a werewolf, she would have known
that. If he were a warlock he would have used Magic by now. He
spoke about visions, and being that he was from Griffon City, it
meant he was something.

Why not a psychic? "Are you actually
psychic?"

The question intrigued her, probably
because she never met a real, live psychic before. Could he read
her thoughts right now? Was that how he was getting the
visions?

Maybe meeting with Hadrian for the
first time jarred something. When he spoke of dying she got the
feeling that what he saw wasn’t an everyday occurrence.

He turned away and grumbled so softly
even she couldn't make out the words.

Anne had never seen someone act so
unhappy over their powers before, unless they were a recent human
turned werewolf, vampire, or other paranormal creature that
required some drastic change in lifestyle.

Other than that, everyone Anne ever met
loved their abilities.

His sour mood confused her. "Are you
okay?"

His nose and eyes crinkled in a scowl.
"Do me a favor. Just don’t advertise that I’m a psychic,
okay?"

Didn’t want anyone to know about his
visions. Didn’t want anyone to know he was psychic. "Uh, sure. You
sure you're alright?"

"Fine," he snapped.

Anger trickled through her veins like
lava. She opened her mouth to snap something back when a roaring
caw echoed in the sky.

Both of their heads shot up.

Anne smiled as the familiar red reptile
soared like a missile through the clouds, scattering the
fluff.

The smile faded when her eyes found the
crippled wing that struggled to hold its owner's body in the
air.

"Oh my God." Anne had no time to do
anything other than curse as Chris' body made too steep a dive for
a proper landing and crashed.

Anne screamed as a wave of rocks and mud
sprayed under him. She lifted her arms to protect her face from the
rocks that attacked. His body finally came to a complete stop not
even ten feet away. Dust and loose grass hovered like a dirty
mist.

Anne inhaled and coughed. Mike did the
same beside her, his one hand on his knee while the other waved
away the dust in his face.

The dust cloud settled and Anne gasped as
her heart and lungs stopped moving. No time for this now! She
regained control of her body and ran to Chris, falling to her
knees.

She eyed his neck. It didn’t look broken
or at an odd angle. She cradled his pointed arrow head in her lap,
panicked when his eyes didn’t open. "Chris? Chris!"

His beak opened a crack, releasing a
weak caw. His red eyes opened and tongue darted out to taste the
air, likely sniffing to be sure he was actually with her and not
still under attack.

Anne stroked the sleek scales of his
head before craning her neck to look at the rest of his body.
"You're going to be just fine. Stay still, everything's
alright."

His scales that were normally so perfect
and gleaming, were in disarray. Bits were cut away down to the
flesh underneath in the worst places. The wounds were steadily
bleeding. Anne’s eyes trickled with tears.

“We’ll get back at him for doing this
to you,” she said, stroking his head and neck.

Another weak caw sounded.

"The worst of it's under his wings," Mike
stated.

Anne forgot he was even standing with
her. She looked up as he threw his hat down at his feet and yanked
his shirt over his head. He pressed the cloth into the crook of the
wing where the bone met Chris's shoulders. "They're barely hanging
on. He was blasted out of the sky."

Sickness went down Anne's throat and
threatened to come back up again.

Westley was on them in an instant. She
didn't see him running towards them until he was with them. Must’ve
heard the crash.

He looked down at the bleeding dragon with
his mouth open and said nothing to anyone. Following Mike’s
example, he ripped his shirt off.

He tenderly stuffed it into the crook
of Chris's other wing to stall the blood flow. Chris flinched and
cawed again, then stopped moving.

Westley must’ve been in shock like she
was, otherwise she was certain they would both be in fits of
hysteria.

But Westley's voice came out firm and
commanding. "We need to get him inside, right now. Help
me."

"He's the size of a car," Mike
protested.

It was true, the size of a small car, but
Mike must've forgotten that everyone with him was a werewolf.
Strong enough to lift Chris to wherever he needed to go.

A yapping sounded in the distance. A
moment later, Brock was next to them. Skidding to a halt, he
changed back into a human, regardless of his nudity.

He stared down at the dragon as though
he didn’t know what to make of it being there. “What
happened?”

“
Help us take him into the barn,”
Westley commanded.

Brock hesitated, even took a step
back.

Westley growled. His eyes flashed and
nails became long and sharp. “I said NOW!”

Brock jumped in and settled next to
Mike.

“
On the count of three,” Westley
said, never taking his eyes away from the unconscious dragon’s
head. “One, two…” They heaved Chris into the air with a collective
groan of exertion.

Even for three werewolves and a man,
the dragon was heavy.

Westley took great care to hold his wing
upright, preventing the cuts from sinking any deeper, which, in
turn, would hopefully keep them from falling off. Anne held his
long neck to keep it from dragging while Mike took care of his
share of the weight plus the right wing while Brock balanced the
body.

Westley took control of the four of
them and steered them to the barn.

With not much weight to carry, Anne didn't
break a sweat. Sweat was dripping off of Mike as he held
on.

She should’ve made him hold the neck so
she could carry some of the body weight, but she doubted he would
have liked having a woman take the heavier end. Guys usually
didn’t.

Her heart pounded erratically in her
chest. That warlock, Hadrian, wanted to do this to Mike. He wanted
to do this to her and Westley just for helping him.

Pain pierced her heart like a long needle.
Chris was in this painful situation because she convinced him to go
back with her and rescue Mike. She had the flashlight, she had
werewolf strength, she should have been able to do it on her own
instead of involving her best friends.

She looked up at Westley, who still wore
the face of a leader as he commanded them to move towards one of
the horse stalls. She wanted to apologize to him especially. This
was all her fault. What if Chris were to die?

It made her want to grab the
nearest thin knife and stick it in the guy
’s ribs.

Westley led them to a clean stall that
used to belong to one of their larger horses, and they set Chris
down on a bed of hay.

Mike’s tomato-red face suggested he
wanted to just drop his load, but he was as gentle as everyone
else.

He inhaled a lungful of air and fell
back against the wooden stall when his hands released the weight.
His normal tanned color returned to his skin as his bare chest
heaved for air.

Westley tenderly set the wings down and
leaned over the red dragon. His hands were stroking the ruined
scales and up his neck, searching for other injuries and a
pulse.