There was a noise like popcorn popping, and Rori’s wolf turned its head to the side and stared as the wolf became a woman. Not just any woman, it was Ashley. “You’re safe, Rori. Nobody here will hurt you.” Rori stared at her for a while and looked around, no one else was coming, and she sniffed the air again. “Come over here, let’s talk.” Ashley sat down under the shade of a large tree, naked on the grass, her hand reaching towards her friend. When she didn’t come, she just talked to her softly until her curiosity won out, and she slowly approached her friend.
Ashley stayed still, knowing her friend could bolt again at anything that frightened her. She waited patiently as Rori sniffed her arm, then circled her and licked at her neck before sitting down on her haunches. “Can you shift back,” she asked. “Think of yourself as a human, let the change come to you.”
Rori growled and shook her head. “Fine, I’ll change for you then.” She let the change come about, and her grey and black wolf replaced her human body. Rori’s wolf stood and started wagging her tail, sniffing her excitedly as Ashley did the same. The two wolves sniffed and played for ten minutes as their amused and tired Pack mates watched from a distance. Finally, Rori laid down next to her friend and fell into an exhausted sleep.
“Nice job, Ashley,” Martin said. She chuffed and put her head over Rori’s neck, watching over her as she slept. “The Luna and I will stay here with her. I need the border patrol to return to their duties, and six of you to remain in case she runs again when she wakes up. The rest of you can return to your duties.” He looked over at his father. “You too, Dad. She recognized you, and not in a good way. She doesn’t respond well to her birth name, either. Go home, let me handle my niece,” he said.
Charles stood, looking back towards his granddaughter he let out a chuff and turned for home. His son was right; she had been the victim of multiple kidnapping attempts. Following her and being spotted had just made her associate him with Todd’s men. There would be time for explanations later.
Martin watched with Rebecca until they had both recovered from the hard run. “Ashley, how is she doing?”
“She’s in a deep sleep, Alpha. The change and the run really took it out of her.”
“We’re coming down.” He got up, rubbing his head on his mate’s neck before they started walking towards the two wolves down by the lake. Ashley’s wolf was whapping her tail against the ground and whined softly as her Alphas greeted her with sniffs and licks. Martin sniffed his sister’s daughter, then started to groom her. She let out a low rumble as he licked at her face, ears and neck, but didn’t wake. He laid down next to her, Rebecca taking the other side, and they all fell asleep with Rori in the middle.
An hour later, Rori had opened her eyes to find herself in the middle of the other wolves. Instead of being frightened, she felt good… safe, even loved. She had her friend on one side, and she could feel the power and dominance of the wolf on the other. Instead of scaring her, it helped her settle. She smelled his neck, then the neck of the silver-colored wolf whose neck was over his shoulder.
Rebecca stirred and woke, getting to her feet, and this woke the others. Martin stood and stretched, then greeted his mate with licks as he rubbed his scent onto her side. When he turned back to Rori, her wolf felt his Alpha presence and lifted her head to expose her neck. “It’s all right, Rori,” he sent to her wolf. “I’m so happy to finally see you again.”
She didn’t respond, so he went over and placed his teeth gently over her neck, accepting her submission to him. He licked her face, and she rolled over and got up unsteadily onto her paws.
“Did she say anything to you,” his mate asked.
“No. I’m not sure if my link is getting through, either.” They had a long conversation with the Pack Doctor after they had realized how many drugs she had been on and for how long. He was concerned her wolf had been unable to meld with her human side. Nothing he had seen at the Pack House had changed that; her human side was fighting the change, something all teens were told not to do as they approached their first shifts. Rori had so many things working against her, it was no wonder she thought the voices in her head were because she was crazy. “The human side is involved in the link as well, it gives the language and selects the link,” he said. “She probably can’t access the part of her brain she would need to without being melded to her human side.”
“Maybe Doc can help us. We should head home,” she replied. He let out a howl, and the three shewolves joined him the second time. When the echoes ended, he started trotting towards the trail that led back to the Pack House. He was relieved when Rori’s wolf joined them. She seemed happy now; she was playing with Ashley’s wolf, sniffing the ground and trees, and chased after a rabbit with no success. Martin gave her all the time she needed, knowing that her wolf needed to become comfortable in that form, and with them.
Martin smelled another rabbit and froze, causing the others to stop as well. He moved off the trail, slowly moving around to the other side of the clearing as the shewolves waited in the bushes. ‘Let her catch it,” he sent to them just before he bolted from cover, causing the rabbit to run right to them.
Rori’s wolf didn’t miss this time, a quick pounce and the rabbit was in her jaws. She shook her head, snapping its neck, then dropped it to the ground and sniffed it. The others gave her space and watched as her teeth pulled the fur out of the way and gave her wolf her first taste of a fresh kill. She tore into the warm meat, swallowing chunks down. She’d finished half of it when she picked it up and dropped it at Ashley’s feet. She tore a chunk off, then Rebecca and Martin finished it off as Ashley licked the blood from her muzzle.
They made it back to the Pack House an hour later; thinking it would be easier for her, the people waiting for them were in wolf form. He greeted his Pack, and was happy to see Rori’s wolf joining in. She was sniffed and licked and rubbed by many, including many a single male who had hoped she might be her mate. She didn’t react as wolves she had met changed into their human forms and got dressed, so pretty soon it was just her and two juveniles who were still playing on the lawn. Dinner was served picnic style, and the whole Pack ate together on the lawn or the front porch. They tried periodically to get her to shift to human form or respond to the link, but she didn’t, so they left her plate on the ground for her. “Can’t we make her Pack,” Ashley said as she watched her play a game of chase with the younger wolves.
“She has to say the words, she can’t do that unless she shifts back,” Martin said.
Martin watched as she seemed to run out of energy as the sun was near the horizon. She walked onto the covered porch, turned three times on a rug, then laid down and went to sleep.
The Alpha went over and stroked the fur of his niece, then picked her up. “Get the doors, honey. We’ll let her sleep it off in her room.” She ran ahead of him to open up the door to the guest room and turn down the covers of the big bed. He laid her in the center, then covered her up with the sheet and the thin blanket. “Doc thinks she will sleep for a long time,” he said. Her stuff had already been brought into the room, and he took her phone from the charger on the bedside table. Ashley knew her access code was her human birthday, so he opened the screen and sent Donna a text saying she had arrived at the lake and was having a great time. He got a reply back that said “Have fun, I love you” and he set it back down.
“Will she change back?”
“I hope so,” he said as he closed and locked the door. He didn’t want any curious people disturbing her as she slept. He pulled her close to him. “I wish she was better, but I’m so thankful she’s safe with us now,” he said.
“It will get better,” she told him as she buried her face in his neck. “Then we need to convince her to stay.”
The doctor assumed Rori would sleep late into the morning, but he didn’t know that she rarely slept the night through. Her nightmares would always wake her up. It was just after three in the when she bolted upright in bed, her body sweaty and shaking. She froze as she looked around the darkened room, trying to figure out where she was.
She saw no one, the room was large and so was the bed. She flipped the covers back and turned on the light on the bedside table. She saw her phone and picked it up, a message from her mother showed up as she checked the time. Opening it up, she read the message, but froze when she saw the previous conversation.
It was three AM, they had arrived just before lunch, and she had been in a blackout since she saw him.
HE was here. The one who had followed her with the other two men, the one who probably drove the car that the two dead men were dropped off in. He was here, and now she was HIS,
just like that man had promise. “You’ll be coming with us, Charlotte. You belong with us.” That is what he said, and that man called her Charlotte, right before the pain came. He must have been tracking her, there was no other way her could have found her. And Ashley… Ashley had to be in on it. She wasn’t shocked to see him and this trip was HER idea. She led her straight to him, where her Mom wasn’t around. Her stomach ached with the bitterness of betrayal.