Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (21 page)

“He’s in the house, not behind it,
” Daisy told Rachel, keeping her voice low and private in the crowded room. “He’s having a drink with the mayor and his crew before the run.”

“Oh! I wasn’t… I was…”

“Oh, honey, you can’t hide it. You’ve got the same look on your face you had in my kitchen. He looks for you the same way. Why, when he’s up at the bordello, pretending to be interested in the Mayor and his cronies, he spends half his time looking out the window at the Hotel. It burns Barnabas Holt up, the Sheriff doing that, but there’s nothing the Second can do about it. Looking isn’t the same as touching, now is it? The sheriff’s a fine looking wolver and a couple of my girls are always hanging around, trying to entice him upstairs.”

Daisy
chuckle was almost as deep as a man’s when Rachel’s head snapped around to glare at her with blazing eyes.

“It’s
a business, honey, and I’m a business woman, so business comes first. I can’t afford to turn away a paying customer, but if it’ll ease your mind, he never takes them up on the offer. He pays for liquor and food, but never for the entertainment. Plays checkers with them, though, and gets a kick out of it when they beat him. What I can’t figure is with him looking like he does, and you looking like you do, why he hasn’t moved on you.”

Rachel couldn’t tell her why. It was a secret that had to be kept. Daisy was a business woman and her business partner was
Barnabas Holt.

“It’s me. I don’t want him,” she lied and immediately knew she wouldn’t be beli
eved. “I mean I want him, but… after the New Year, I’ll be announcing my coming mating.”

“To who?”

“Um, Mr. Coogan?”

Daisy laughed again. “
But you haven’t said yes. There’s no official understanding between you two yet. Otherwise you wouldn’t be saying his name like a question. I told you before, a woman has to do what needs to be done to look after herself, but that doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy herself between times.”

Unexpectedly, Daisy pulled Rachel’s face away from the window where she was staring out again, and looked into her eyes.”

“Do you know what goes on between a man and a woman?” the Madam asked bluntly.

“What? Yes. I suppose.
Of course!”

“Not. That’s what I thought. You may know which part goes where, but you know nothing about men. Well let me tell you a thing or two.”

A thing or two was all they had time for, before they felt the pull of the rising moon and someone shouted excitedly, “It’s here! It’s here!”

Flashes of light like Fourth of July firecrackers without the sound, popped all over the room. There were a few squeals and grunts as women, unused to the feeling, changed from woman to wolf. Someone had the presence o
f mind to open the doors beforehand.

Rachel was only vaguely aware of what was happening around her. Her wolf was too eager to run.

Chapter 20

She felt the call of the Hunter’s Moon touch her as it did every year, but unlike those other years, this time she opened herself up to it and let it flow through her soul as she’d been taught to do when she was young. The change happened so quickly, yet she felt every shift in every muscle and bone, felt her muzzle elongate, her ears grow, felt the wood of the floor through the pads of her paws. Her eyesight became sharper and the scents, oh, the scents.

With each step she took across the floor, the glands between the toes of e
very female left the hint of her scent and each scent was as unique to the she-wolf’s nose as a human fingerprint. She sniffed, identifying, categorizing, and filing everything away in a memory as old as time. She sneezed when she snuffed too hard at a bit of chalk dust in the corner where she’d trailed the scent of mouse.

Yipping a
nd laughing at her own foolishness, Rachelwolf ran out the door to find others who were cavorting with the same lighthearted feeling as she. Another female approached her. Head held down and slightly cocked, the female advanced one step at a time, cautiously asking if Rachelwolf wanted to play. Mimicking the other wolf’s stance, she approached with the same measured step until their heads were side by side and eye to eye.

The other wolf blinked a
nd then they were off! Chasing, bumping, nipping at each other and tumbling like clumsy pups.

“
Careful!” Rachel admonished her wolf. “That’s Mrs. Benjamin Washburn, so straight-backed and proper, they say she has no need of a corset!
”

Silly human talk.
This was what came from never letting wolves out to meet and play. “No Mrs. Benjamin Blah-blah. Elizawolf! Fun to play with.”

Others joined in the free-for-all with yipping and
snorts of laughter. They were free! free! free! And suddenly they were running, leaving the older and more cautious ones behind.

Some instinct told them to head for the low hills and
rises that led to the foothills and mountains beyond. It was safer there, with more cover for their numbers and more things to smell and chase. Smaller groups broke off from the all-female pack, some to join up with the males, some to run with friends, some to slow to the steady and comfortable trot common to all wolves.

Rachelwolf stayed with a faster moving group, though not one that ran flat out.
They ran near, but not with, a group of males. Occasionally, one or two of the males would join their party, checking scents for someone familiar or someone new. No one took offense at this. It was the way of wolvers under the sway of the moon.

Rachel saw a large black male approach and knew by the size and the massive chest,
who it must be.

“
Mr. Marbank from the livery must be looking for Miss Nesbit,” Rachel informed her wolf. “Eustace said Mr. Marbank had an interest.”

The she-wolf snapped at he
r own backside in an attempt to correct the silly and annoying human inside her.

“
No Mister. No Miss. Achilleswolf. Cassiewolf. No other names count. Only the Alpha and the Mate are special. Others are like Rachelwolf. Pack.
” And then she yipped again and raised her nose to the air in a short, joyful howl. “
Challenger special, too. Find mate!
”

“No, no, no!”

“
Mate, mate, mate!”

Their group was dwindling as more and more females paired off with males
, the males first running beside them before culling them from the group. The human Rachel saw what was happening, but it was the she-wolf who understood. The males had never seen this many she-wolves run and the scents of the unmated were more enticing than chasing jackrabbits or running down a deer.

This
, too, was the way of wolvers. While anything more than sniffing, licking, and nuzzling was strictly forbidden, more mates were discovered on a moonlit run through the hills than in human form on the street. This was pack and the pack understood the need to mate. The Hunter’s Moon was particularly beguiling to the male, so beguiling, in fact, that many a young wolver woman was warned not to let her wolf rule her head.

The she-wolf snorted in derision.
“
Wolf smarter than human. Knows good mate when see one. Challengerwolf good mate. Mine.
”

“No, he’s not. He’s going to be the Alpha.”

“
Not Alpha yet! Silly Sterlingwolf is the Alpha almost.
” She spit as if tasting something rancid. “
We find Challengerwolf, my wolf
.”

“He is not your wolf!”

“
Not yet, but will be
.”

“No!”

“
Mate, mate, mate
,” Rachelwolf sang as she trotted off from the group, having spotted another group of males in the distance. She tried to nip her nagging human several times, but only succeeded in pinching herself. Frustrated, she decided to ignore the protests and pretend her human wasn’t there. After all, Rachel had put her to sleep for a long, long, long time. She was free now and, under the full moon, she was in charge.

The she-wolf’s time-sense didn’t work in minutes or hours or days, but she knew by the pull of the moon that she had plenty of time to find her mate. She chased a few rabbits for the fun of it, zigzagging back and forth and pouncing with no real intent to capture. Once, she veered off course, to follow the flight of an owl
, but lost interest when the bird flew too high. The rattle of a snake startled her, but she heeded the warning and changed her route. She could kill it if she chose to, but she wasn’t hungry and had no pups to be threatened by it. Ancient wisdom told her ‘Don’t bite things that bite back’. Bears bite back. Big cats bite back. Snakes bite back. Humans don’t bite back, but they poke with sharp sticks and burn with bang-sticks.

“Guns.
Rifles,” her human corrected.

“
Shh. Listen. Smell
.
New scent behind. Following
.”

It was a scent she was vaguely familiar with and would have
known if Rachel wasn’t so shy about sniffing packmates. The scent, mixed with human cologne, prickled her nose and the irritation triggered recognition. She found a gap between two boulders and waited for the follower to find her. She met him with a warning growl that showed off one sharp incisor.

“
Go
.”

The male didn’t listen. He broadened his stance and puffed out his chest to make himself look bigger. He was prime and healthy and he knew it.

“
Go
,” she told him again and added a few more teeth to show she meant business.

He opened his mouth, tongue partly protruding and sniffed, long and loud, taking in her scent.
His tongue came out to lick his lips and muzzle as if she was a tasty treat, a rabbit or a mouse.

How rude! She was no rodent! She was strong. She was beautiful. She was wolf/wolver. She bared her teeth in a full blown snarl and lunged with a snapping of jaws
, the sound a threat and show of intent.

The male leapt back, just out of reach
, but he didn’t listen. “
Jack, Rachel, mate.
”

Deep inside her, Rachel uttered a word t
hat would make their mate laugh, so Rachelwolf repeated it.

“
Asshat
!”

The male looked surprised at her name for him and even more surprised when she leapt at him, snarling and slashing
at his muzzle with her sharp teeth. She caught the edge of his nose and blood spurted. The scent of blood enflamed her and she attacked again. He was bigger than she, and stronger, and she shouldn’t have been able to best him, but he was a stupid wolf and too busy licking the blood from his nose and once again, she caught him off guard. She bowled him off his feet and with one last snarl, trotted away, showing him her tail in contempt. Stupid male.

She’d lost track of the party of
six males she was looking to join and climbed to the top of a rise to better catch sight or scent. Standing upwind, she smelled them before she saw them some distance away, dark shadows in the light of the moon. Only now, they were five. Sorting through the scents, she found the wolver she was looking for and pulled the special fragrance of him into her. Her breath released in a long joyful howl. He was far, but not too far, and her long legs would carry her there in no time. She set off in a graceful lope, across an area of relatively flat ground. Night creatures moved through the brush and grasses, their movement and odors leaving impressions, but garnering no interest. She knew where she was going and who she was going to. With the wind in her face, his scent became stronger and she needed to find him. Soon. Soon.

Her human had ceased her nagging ob
jections and was finally enjoying the freedom of the run. The wind was strong, the air was cool, and the sky was clear and stars sparkled above. The Hunter’s Moon had captured her soul and she was free, free, free and running toward the mate she knew was hers. He knew it, too.

She heard the soft pounding of wolf feet behind her and to her right flank and her first thought was that stupid Jackwolf had followed her though being downwind, she couldn’t catch his scent. Let him follow and see what a real mate looked like. She increased her speed.

It was foolish and cocky and Rachel tried to warn her, but she was tired of the woman’s nagging and by the time she realized this wolf was too big, too powerful to be Jackwolf, it was already too late.

Her burst of speed was nothing to this wolf and he tackled her from the side with such force that the wind was knocked out of her. With the deep gasp of air needed to refill her lungs, she knew him.
He was the largest of the wolves who attacked Challenger, the night she fought beside him. She had no name for him, but she didn’t need one. Her human knew him well and she was afraid.

He was the Alpha’s Second and when his muzzle caught her underside and tossed her through the air, she knew he wasn’t only strong. He was brutal.

She would have bowed, groveled and begged his forgiveness for whatever offense he thought she had committed. He was raw and ruthless power and he would hurt her badly if she didn’t. He never gave her the chance.

“Run! Run!” Rachel screamed inside her, but the she-wolf was too terrified to listen.

Humans didn’t understand the way of wolves. She couldn’t outrun this male. She would have to beg for mercy. Rachelwolf staggered to her feet, searching for the balance she needed to drop to her belly and crawl. But again, he gave her no time. His teeth were at the back of her neck, his body pushing at her from behind and the silent communication within his snarl was clear.

“
Mate
.”

It wasn’t a question or the stupid assumption of Jackwolf. It was a command.
He was going to mount her.

“
No! No! No!”
She howled her objection to this forbidden act.

Wolvers did not mate this way. They mated as humans and offspring could only be born from truly mated pairs. This was not mating, but it could produce offspring. Every wolver knew this without being taught
, and Primal Law was clear. Such an act was an abomination.

Offspring of such a union would not be wolver, would be something else. It would not be human. It would not be wolf.
It would be a monster. And no wolver female could hold her head high after being used in such a way.

Rachelwolf
would not let her body be used in such a way. Could not. She twisted beneath the grasp of his teeth and the cover of his body. The submissive nature of her wolf gave way to the wolver directive of Primal Law. She fought and echoed her humans scream of pain when the vicious teeth sank through her thick coat and into the flesh of her neck. Skin tore as she thrashed and twisted onto her back, instinctively kicking out with her hind feet at the soft belly now above her.

He yelped and leapt away, snarling in fury at the blood she had drawn.

Feet flailing in the air, she twisted, rolled, found purchase, and scrambled upright, trying to run while finding her balance. She heard his snarl as he dove at her and another joined it and she was driven back to the ground by the weight of two male wolves locked in combat.

Once more, she was fighting for breath as she clawed her way from beneath the snarling wolves. She smelled blood, her own and the Second’s. She smelled the fetid stench of
the Second, forever tied to what he tried to do. And she smelled the wolver who was meant to be her mate, his scent now tinged with a primordial fury in his need to protect what was his. Both males swelled with an explosion of power.

Fear,
anger, and the surge of power crackling through the air, brought her body to a fevered pitch and she snarled and growled at the mass of silver and brown fur, but she could do nothing to help. They were moving too fast, a tangle of slashing claws and teeth.

More w
olvers were coming, three from behind her and four from where she’d been headed. Other snarls joined the combatants’, though none entered the battle and then the Alpha was there, ordering them to stop with growls and snarls of his own. They ignored him and the swell of his power when he snarled again felt half-hearted at best.