Born Wolf - 18. Chapter 9.1

Degan Canon flipped through the papers on his desk and reviewed the photos Willis had taken of the new site out at the oxbow lakes. It looked promising. The site was very large and backed onto the next part of the National Forest parkland as well as the flat protected valley of the river. And the pack could afford it. It was a stretch, buying several nearby houses would be cheaper, but this would solve many more issues for the pack. Degan shuffled the copies and the spare photos together along with the list of pack members taken from the roster and put the lot into a large manila envelope. He wrote the address carefully in a rounded hand and put the envelope in the stack of letters on his desk to be sent up to the South Bank pack.

Things had gone from tense to great, to tense again in the pack. The mood of a group of werewolves was a fluid thing, connected to the happiness of the individuals, and tied to the strongest members of the pack. It should have been himself, Willis and Noakes, and the other members of the council. But since Kurt’s fight with Phillip and Tahryn’s obvious dismissal of other pack members at the council vote, the lay of emotions had changed. When the Ulrich boys were high strung the pack was nervous. And there they were taking one step forwards and two steps back.

Kurt had recovered well from his fight, broken his mind in half and then ignored the needs of his wolf soul. Noakes said he’d been lucky as sin not to break anything else and had come out of his fall basically uninjured. Physically at least. Mentally the boy was a wreck. The big black wolf had spent the night in Degan’s house, back in the sickroom where he had slept after his injury, but in one of the dog baskets taken from Degan’s study. Tahryn had been sent home again, much to the big blond wolf’s disgust, and now Kurt was back in his parent’s house. He was still wolf, still uncommunicative, and still feral. It was not a good situation.

No one was willing to challenge him over it. Willis had tried and come back with scratches where he hadn’t moved away quickly enough. Kurt was too strong, and apparently now without any kind of control. Tahryn, big and sandy coloured, had spent the day lying, head on paws, outside the back door. Willis had basically dragged him to school. No good was going to come from pining after his mate. Kurt was talking to no one, and it wasn’t helping anything. Degan needed the boys to see eye to eye properly, finally, if any of his plans were ever going to work out in any real sense.

Degan chose to focus on happier things. Mary James had gone into labour, finally, but it was a long one. The new pup was really keen to stay inside and not join them out in the big wide world. It was good for Dinah Tanner to have other things to focus her mind after the loss of her son. The new wolf Deoran was turning out to be solid and reliable. He had helped to bury the body of Philip, and had been the first to arrive to where Kurt had fallen. He’d gone from quivering wreck to showing his true colours, strong and dependable, very quickly indeed. Degan was pleased with Aliza’s choice of mate. She’d chosen well, for all her fast paced method had led him to believe otherwise. A dominant female was a powerful force indeed.

And that lead to the situation with his granddaughter and Chaska Spencer. Degan regretted, just for a moment, his decision to welcome the Spencer family into the pack. It seemed the children were causing no end of trouble now. Noakes had been to Degan with his concerns.

“A split,” the doctor had laid his arm across Degan’s desk decisively, “in the family. I swear it was like the dining table was broken right down the middle.”

“Is it that bad already?” Degan had frowned at his gamma across the desk, turning a little brass wolf paperweight over and over in his hand.

“Yes. Those five are a pack already; for all they look like a bunch of unruly teenagers. And it looks like Tahryn could be their alpha if he can keep his mate under control.”

“Five?” Degan had dropped the brass canine on his foot with a yelp. “What do you mean five?”

“Isla. The littlest one.” Noakes looked at him like he was blind. “She and Kurt are like two peas in a pod.”

“Oh god…” Degan put his head in his hands. “Do you think there would be any more? We’ll lose a whole generation.”

Noakes seemed to consider the question.

“The middle girl will stay. She’s still with Whelan.”

“What about Henry? Tanner’s boy?” Degan spoke carefully. There was no love lost between Henry and Kurt, especially now, but the young wolf had still been seen with his former blond friend. Apparently there was a loyalty there too which was not yet broken.

“I don’t know. It would kill Alex if he went.” Noakes pinched his forehead. “But he might. He seems to be very loyal to Tahryn. It depends if he can forgive Kurt or not.”

“They can’t stay can they?” Degan asked, but knew the answer.

“No. They are already aligned differently. They’ll have to go. Did you receive the communiqué back from Pincents Hill yet?”

“Yes. It’s been done before.”

“With one alpha?”

“Yes. I’m not sure there’s ever been a double alpha before.” Degan sighed. “Was it wrong of me not to see that aspect in him?”

“None of us did.”

“This is going to cause problems if it’s not handled right isn’t it?” Degan could show worry in front of his gamma. Noakes would know what to do.

“Yes. Yes it is. You have any idea how hard it’s going to be to convince Kurt to leave the territory?”

*

Finally out of breath, Tahryn headed off the asphalt track and headed towards the patch of grass where he had left water bottle and towel. Trying to be normal was nigh on impossible today, not after he had spent the night sitting outside Degan’s house wanting to be with his mate. Willis had strong armed him into coming, and then signed him off classes for the day and sent him out to the track to go run off his anxiety. Why he couldn’t stay home and run wolf through the woods he didn’t know. He’d been out here for hours, pushing his muscles way past the point of smooth easy motion and into the territory where every step hurt. It was a great distraction. Blood pounding in his ears, Tahryn put his head between his knees and panted, tongue out like a wolf. Some habits were hard to shake.

He smelt Henry before he heard him. His ears were rubbish with his pulse this hard anyway, but over the sweat his nose worked fine. Henry’s usual scent was coloured with uncertainty and the grey ribbon of loss. He had not forgotten what Tahryn’s mate had done to his brother. He never would, but the fact that Henry was approaching him now meant the other teen knew, as Degan had, what Kurt had done had been necessary. Philip had meant to destroy Kurt, but he hadn’t been strong enough to follow through on his challenge and wouldn’t back down. Expulsion or death had been Philip’s only options. When you challenged a wolf like Kurt, those options were narrowed for you.

“Hey.”

Tahryn looked up at the werewolf he still considered his friend. Henry smiled at him. It was such a normal gesture Tahryn felt his breath catch in his chest all over again. Kurt had smiled like that, just once before everything had gone wrong. He nodded back and made a welcoming gesture with one arm, indicating the grass. He took a long drink as Henry sat down, trying to calm the frantic thudding of his heart, and offered his friend the water. Henry, not even sweating, declined with a hand.

“You’ve been out here for hours Tahryn.”

“I know.” Tahryn looked up at the sky. It would have been nice for it to have been overcast, cloudy, preferably black to match his mood, but no: the sun was out, the sky was watercolour blue and dotted with little fluffy clouds like sheep in summer. He looked utterly despondent. “I think I really screwed up Henry.”

His friend’s hand landed softly on his shoulder and Tahryn decided he wanted the comfort from the touch, the usual werewolf instinct to have physical contact whenever things went wrong.

“Looks like none of our lives are getting easier.” Henry squeezed his shoulder. “You want to talk to me about it?”

“You don’t want to hear about my problems with Kurt. You hate him.”

Henry shrugged and lay back on the grass, pillowing his head on his arms.

“Sure I do. It doesn’t mean he was wrong though.”

“What?” Tahryn twisted around to look at his friend. Henry looked unchanged, still sort of good looking, very normal for a teenage boy. Only in his eyes could you see the change, the chocolate brown distant and thoughtful whereas before he had been happy-go-lucky and dancing with life and hormones.

“We’ve never gotten on well. We probably never will. I hate that he killed my brother, but I’d told Philip a dozen times he would never win against Kurt. He was dumb as fuck to try again. Kurt and I will never be friends, but you’re my friend and he’s your mate so…” Henry managed to shrug again from his prone position. “I would rather Philip had lived, but I wouldn’t have wanted Kurt to die either.”

“I’m sorry, about your brother.” Tahryn found the words stuck in his throat, even though they were true.

“He was not always the nicest person to be around. Mostly I feel bad for Mum, she was devoted to him.” Henry patted the grass beside him, and Tahryn relaxed his spine back into the warm earth. “Now tell me what’s eating you. Kurt’s not injured again is he? I thought I heard Noakes say he was somehow OK?”

“Somehow being the operative word there. I have no idea how he didn’t injure himself again.” Tahryn exhaled deeply and closed his eyes. It was somewhat easier to speak when he could only see with his nose. The world was growing, and everything reminded him of the scent of his mate. “I think I pushed him too hard, calling him ‘pup’ in public and thinking he was OK with it. Fucking hell, we took him shopping and treated him like he was any other boy. I ignored the fact he hadn’t shifted in days. I thought he was OK, that he was coping with it…” Tahryn stopped speaking. He could feel the hot tears and the sob in his throat. He did not want to cry here, out on the sports field, in front of his friend.

“Hey…” Henry touched his shoulder again. “You didn’t know.”

“Sure I did. I just chose to ignore it.” Tahryn swallowed the tears and kept going. “I knew he was crushing all his wolf instincts. He went from having no human side at all to giving it all his attention. He couldn’t hold it together, and I pushed him to hard.”

“What did you do Tay?” He could tell Henry was leaning up on one elbow, watching him. Tahryn kept his eyes closed, almost too embarrassed to answer.

“I fucked him.” Tahryn breathed shakily into the hot silence that followed his words. He half, no more than half, expected Henry to get up and walk away. Straight guys were not known for their coping ability when their best male friend wants to talk about sex with guys. Henry didn’t move. “I think I sort of forced him to. I didn’t mean to, but I used a command on him.”

“You guys can command each other?” Henry sounded more shocked by that than anything else Tahryn had said so far.

“Yeah…” Tahryn felt his diaphragm sink as he exhaled again. “And he can hear my thoughts if I don’t guard them. I can hear him when we… have sex.” Tahryn paused, and then clarified. “As wolves.”

“Dude, it’s kind of awesome don’t you think?” Henry seemed to consider something. “You mean you can’t hear him all the time?”

“No. Well. We haven’t… you know,” Tahryn growled inwardly, talking about sex with Henry was even harder than talking about it with Kurt. “Done it as humans yet.”

“I thought you said you…”

“We didn’t exactly get very far.” Tahryn rubbed the long red scratch on his arm where Kurt’s fangs had laid him open. Noakes had given him steri-strips and antiseptic for the wound, but it had healed well overnight in wolf form. “I don’t know what to do.”

Henry seemed to consider this. Tahryn could hear his friend fidgeting with the grass, tearing the wide blades into little strips.

“Talk to him?”

“He’s a wolf. He holed himself up in his parent’s house after he left Degan’s and hasn’t come out since. Degan thinks ‘space’ will be good for us.”

“So no talking?”

“I doubt it.” Tahryn thumped big fists hard into the dry ground. It hurt, and that was good. He did it again.

“Dude.” Henry put a hand out to cover his. “He doesn’t want you to punish yourself.”

“But it was my fault! I should have known he wasn’t coping. I should have just slowed the fuck down. Stuck to stuff he was comfortable with.” Tahryn’s words were hot and red with anger and self-pity.

“You can’t see inside his head. And you didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“Intentions count for nothing once someone gets hurt.” Tahryn screwed up his eyes as he felt the hot salt tears finally escaping. “And now Degan’s going to kick us out.”

“WHAT?” Henry obviously hadn’t meant to shout, because he swore softly under his breath and slapped a hand across his mouth with force. “I mean; what? Why? How did you find out?”

“Noakes let it slip. Our days are numbered.” Tahryn sighed, what the doctor had said weighed heavily on him now he and Kurt weren’t talking again. “I never thought I would be, could be, an alpha.”

“Really?” Tahryn opened red rimmed eyes to look at his friend. Henry was sitting cross legged, making a daisy chain aimlessly while he thought, “I figured you knew. I did.”

“What? How could you know?”

Henry shook his head slowly, and Tahryn had the feeling he was about to be made to look a bit blond and stupid.

“You remember when you first moved here?” Tahryn nodded, “and you walked into our lives and usurped the top spot in our social group?” He didn’t give Tahryn time to counter him, but ploughed on. “You did it naturally, as though there could be no other outcome. I’m surprised you didn’t see it in yourself, because I certainly did.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. I’m not an alpha. I’m happy where I am. But you just swept in and made the world revolve around you. I don’t expect you even noticed?” Tahryn’s gaze apparently gave Henry the answer to his question. “See? All the humans and the wolves in our set all look to you to make decisions. Where we eat, what we do, where he hang out, when we run, it’s all you.”

“Shit.”

“Well there’s no way Degan would let you take over South Sea. Not with Kurt as unpredictable as he is. Sorry.” Tahryn had felt the growl in his throat overriding the tears before he’d even had time to draw breath. “But as a wolf he’s stronger than you, which would make him wolf alpha. You’d have to be alpha together.”

“Is that even possible?”

“Who knows?” Henry shrugged.

Tahryn stared back up at the annoyingly sunny sky.

“We’d have to be on speaking terms for more than two days straight I reckon. Damn.”

“Yeah. You two have a lot to work on.” Henry touched his knuckles gently, and turned the gesture into a handshake. “I’m going to come with you.”

“What?”

“Every good alpha needs a gamma wolf right? Chaska is obviously beta in your pack.”

“But what about… Kurt? Philip?” The hugeness of what had happened hung over both teens for the longest time imaginable which could still be contained by less than ten seconds.

“He was my brother, but he is gone.” Henry’s words were simple but full of a brutal honesty that hurt just to hear. “His memory is best served by not repeating his mistakes.”

*

David James paced nervously up and down his own living room. He’d been shut, forcefully, out of the bedroom and told to go and wait downstairs like good husbands should. The noise of his wife in pain was making his head hurt, but he did not fancy trying to win the argument with Dinah Tanner. All female wolves went very protective and strong when a new pup was arriving, and David was no match for three strong females, especially as one of them was right now swearing blue bloody murder and cursing him in many other colourful ways. Carson had come over to sit with him as he patrolled the perimeter of his lounge in worry.

“Jesus it sounds like she’s dying in there!” David dragged his hands through his hair, making the short thick strands stand on end for all he was messing with them. “I should go back up there.”

“You wanna keep your balls? Don’t do it dude.”

There was another gut wrenching scream from above. It made both big werewolves turn pale.

“And just think,” David sounded sort of amused, “you have all this to look forwards to.”

Carson blanched further.

“Remind me again why I’m your friend?” Carson got up shakily and walked to the little drinks cabinet in the corner and poured two big tumblers of bourbon. “Come on, I’m sure we’re supposed to be drinking while we wait.”

“Can’t we go to the pub?” David whined, looking longingly at the door.

“You think you’ll live long if you leave now? Jesus dude…” Carson reached out and patted his friend’s shoulder as he passed. “Dude, sit down. You’ll wear a hole in the carpet doing that.”

David sat down heavily in the other arm chair. He was sweating, panting, and obviously nervous.

“You excited?”

“Petrified. What if I’m shite at being a dad?” David’s eyes were wide and worried. “What if I drop him-her-it? What if Mary thinks I’m bad at this whole fatherhood thing?”

“I’m thinking the fact you worry about it means you’ll be fine. You’ll do great Dave.”

“You think?” David looked incredulous and hopeful.

“Yeah. You got any names picked out?”

“Mary likes Joseph for a boy, after her grandfather.”

“What about you?” Carson smiled. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Briar is nice. Mary doesn’t like it though.”

Carson choked on his bourbon as he tried to swallow and laugh at the same time. He thumped his chest and wiped his face on his sleeve.

“No shit? You want to call your daughter after a thorny plant. You have a death wish man.”

There was a long scream from above. It made both men’s blood run cold. When it ended there was silence. They heard a whimper, the smallest softest sound. David bolted out of his seat before Carson could stop him.

“Dude wait!” Carson managed to grab his friend’s fist before he pounded on the door to what had been his own bedroom. “Just wait. They’ll bring her out when she’s ready. Wait.”

“But…” David took a deep breath and his eyes went wide, the scent of his new born child working its way into the synapses of his bran, setting all his loving protective instincts on fire. “She smells like crocuses.”

Clover Willis was the first to emerge from the room, closing the door efficiently behind her before either man could see anything.

“Well?” David demanded hotly.

“A girl.”

“I know.”

“A wolf.”

David blinked.

“Huh?”

“A wolf. A… puppy. Like Kurt.”

“But… I mean…”

“David, there’s something else.” Clover’s voice was firm, but soft. “You need to focus now.”

“What? What’s happened?” David’s breath was shallow now, concern overriding all his other senses as he scented over the blood for his wife. There was a lot of blood. Too much blood.

“Mary suffered a haemorrhage during the birth. The baby was in a very complicated position. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“Is she still...?” David couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Yes. But barely.” Clover put a hand on his chest gently. “David she’s not going to make it.”

“NO!” David pushed past the older woman and burst into the room which had been his bedroom. The air was thick with the scent of blood, too thick. The paternal instinct was stronger than the desire to go to his wife. Not until now had David realised the difference between marrying someone you loved and being with your true mate. His wolf-side brain was much more interested in the whimpering bundle which had been placed in the basket on the dresser. His human side won and David sprang to the bed, clutching at his wife’s hand. Dinah had half covered her with the sheet, to hide at least the sight of the worst blood, but Mary was pale, ashen, her hair lank and sweaty, her eyes glazed with pain and far away.

“Babe…” Her voice was right on the edge of hearing, barely more than a breath on his skin.

“No, no ,no…Mary don’t go!” David was vaguely aware he was crying, tears and snot running down his face. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, “I need you.”

“Is she beautiful?” His wife’s eyes were nearly closed, unfocused.

“Mary, stay with me…”

“Is she beautiful?” Mary’s breath was almost non-existent, her face lined with pain.

“Yes! Mary…”

“Call her Yulva. I love you.”

“No!” David’s hands gripping his wife’s were white, the knuckles nearly breaking through the skin, “No! Don’t say that. Don’t go!” But it was too late for pleading and begging. The light was fading in her eyes, and by the time David was finished his plaintive cry she was gone, her last breath drawn out and vanished. David wanted to grasp that last rattling sigh and stuff it back in, find a way of bringing her back. What did he care for a daughter when the woman he loved was gone from him, gone where he couldn’t follow? David let his head fall forwards onto the sheets, his forehead on his wife’s hand and screamed.

The noise became a wail, then a sob, and a litany of tears that seemed to go on forever.

“David.”

Carson’s voice was intruding on his guilt and pain and David didn’t want to look up. The wolf part of him was twisting though, towards the scent of the new-born. Fresh and spring-like, crocus flowers in the dewy grass.

“David.” Carson touched his shoulder, “Dave, look at her. She is beautiful.”

David James turned to the pink blanketed bundle in Carson’s huge oil stained arms and suddenly his world became very focused. The loss of his wife, the woman he had loved for a decade, was still sharp and raw, but somehow no longer overwhelming. Every nerve ending in his brain fired pleasure and a desire to protect like he had never known, never thought he could experience let along comprehend as Carson handed him the bundle.

The pup that was his daughter mewled softly, whimpering. A perfect little puppy. A pink nose and fine fur so white it was like snow, patched and touched with a blue-grey, almost lavender. Like all puppies, her eyes were closed, would open in about a day, and she squirmed towards him, tiny pink tongue seeking warmth and food and love. He stroked the space between ears that were yet to unfold and found the tiny pup suckling on his finger.

“Yulva…” David knew he was still crying, but didn’t care. “As lovely as her mother.”

*

Roger Morris pinched the bridge of his nose and let his head fall back in his expensive executive office chair. The damn thing was supposed to help his back, but did nothing of the sort. Apparently lumbar structure just made you ache more in different places. It didn’t help much that it was his fourth time reading through the petition he had received that morning and it still made no sense to him. He’d opened the big manila envelope when it had first arrived. He reviewed it again on the tube, then between meetings at the office, and now a last time before dinner was due. The gamma of the South Bank pack barked at the ceiling in his annoyance.

It was the second time in a week he’d had to deal with issues at South Sea pack, which after years of quiet should have been seen as a blessing. There were more northerly packs that kept him busy with missives and changes nearly every month. He should have been grateful. But it was the third time in as many communiqués Kurt Smith’s, now Kurt Ulrich’s, name had come up. There weren't any wolves in the South Bank pack who did not know of the boy simply by his unique history alone. Roger had phoned his counterpart over in Personnel at lunch to discuss the matter.

“You have Kurt Smith’s file?”

“In front of me now.” Giles Troup had sounded only slightly worried to pick up the phone to his gamma without a single exchanged pleasantry. “I was just re-filing him under U.”

“Right. Can you fax me over a copy of his incident history?”

“Is there much point, there’s only one entry.” Giles had sounded confused.

“What?” Roger had accidentally growled down the phone. “His file must be half an inch thick and you’re telling me there is only one incident connected to his name? Which one?”

Giles had coughed.

“‘Friday 12^th of April: Was challenged by Phillip Tanner (nee, son of Alex and Dinah Tanner of South Sea pack) to a fight to the death. Won said fight with severe injuries.’ That’s all there is sir.”

“Christ. Can you have his file on my desk for when I get home?”

“Sure thing Roger. Can I ask…?” Giles had left the question open and hanging, in case it was refused.

“Yeah. I got a petition from South Sea for a splinter pack. Looks like the born wolf might be moving. He would be joint alpha with his mate.”

“Sometimes I don’t envy your job. See you at dinner.” Giles had hung up, leaving Roger to fume until his next meeting.

Being head of Pack and Territory Divisions and Management was a good post, and it went very well with his human role sitting on the board of directors for both the Council of Planning and Agriculture and the National Trust. Controlling pack boarders was a hell of a lot easier when you could also help to govern the size and shape of new towns and work on increasing National parkland which had much stricter building regulations. Sometimes Roger was jealous of his people’s Canadian counterparts. They had far fewer worries as far as land was concerned. When the National Trust had been started by Miss Beatrix Potter at the point of her death, pretty much every bright minded wolf in the country had gotten somehow involved in the cause to expand the protected land, to keep their families safe. At one point there had been no human’s on the board at all, only wolves. They were very persuasive at buying up endangered land and property. They joined big sections of the country together with wild forests and working farms, where their people would be safe. Werewolves made very good farmers; they tended not to require sheepdogs.

Now Roger gathered and re-laid out all the documents on his desk. There was Kurt Ulrich’s file, as thick as he remembered it. The monthly updates that had been sent about the boy when he was growing up filled it out. The set of photos of the proposed site of the splinter pack, in a wide farming valley of oxbow lakes and protected woodland with the campsite which the alpha of South Sea intended to buy outright for his new group of young wolves, and the letter Degan Canon had sent with it containing the list of names of the wolves who were most likely to move to form the new pack all crowded his desk.

Chalk Horse Hill; the gamma did have to admit it had a nice ring to it but Roger didn’t know what to make of it all. Two alpha wolves… such a thing had never happened. But then, according to both written records and remembered histories, no two alpha male wolves had ever become mates. And apparently these two were true mates. Not just kids in love, but bound up by hormones and chemical scents that drove them to be together despite all the good reasons they shouldn’t be. The dinner bell went and Roger left his papers and his office, locking it on his way out, to go to the mess hall.

Renting County Hall had been a great option when the South Bank pack had moved in along the river in the late eighties, and their wing of the building housed the fifty wolves easily. Roger took his seat at the main table, at the left hand side of his alpha, and waited for the last few stragglers before the meal began. The alpha and the members of National Council ate first, and after serving himself Roger turned and smiled at Giles who sat further down the first table.

“So anything new to report?” Asked the alpha, turning between his two deputies.

“The New Forest pack alpha stepped down.” The beta replied, and Roger quickly remembered he had given the file to his superior; Daniel liked to handle alpha staffing’s and since it gave Roger less to do, he didn’t mind.

“Already? Good god. Did he hire a replacement?”

“Yeah. It’s all sorted.”

“Good. What about you Roger, anything on your end?” Roger turned to his alpha. He was a good man, a strong firm leader, and he knew the South Sea pack well. He would be better equipped to make a decision.

“South Sea pack wants to form a splinter pack. They have too many dominant young males.” He coughed. “Kurt Ulrich’s name came up.”

“Really?” The alpha laid down his fork, anything that stopped a wolf from eating was pretty important. “Dare I ask as what?”

“Joint alpha. He mated another alpha male.”

“Dear god. I think it might be time we gave our friends on the South Coast a little visit don’t you?”

Roger blanched.

“You’re going to visit them sir?” He asked, dreading the answer that made his alpha smile.

“Nope. But you are.” He gestured to Roger Morris with a fork. “Get down there on a train tomorrow morning. I trust you to make the right decision.”

*

Deoran stood outside of Kurt’s house, or rather, the house in which Kurt was currently holed up, and sighed. It had been a long, long time since he had done something like this, especially initiated it. But he had woken up at four in the morning beside his mate and realised it was probably the best course of action for Kurt. The boy who was too much a wolf had in the space of four days done as much mental damage to himself as Deoran had achieved in eight months. Kurt did nothing by halves. If Kurt responded the way he hoped… Well, it would be half the battle over with.

Deoran slunk through the back door and padded softly up the stairs. He couldn’t follow his nose, too long ignoring his wolf as a teenager had left him permanently head blind in that respect, but the pull of Kurt’s misery was easier to trace than his scent. Deoran pushed the door open with a shoulder. The room looked like it had been shredded by a tornado with claws. In the mess that had once been a bed and blankets was curled the big black shape of Kurt, his topaz and gold eyes narrowed to slits, watching Deoran as he stepped forwards.

It’s alright; you know how to do this. Just remember. Deoran stretched his paws forwards, bringing his head low between them. Tail up, butt in the air, he angled his ears forwards and barked. The black wolf snarled, but didn’t move. Deoran lay on the floor and shuffled towards him, tail sweeping from side to side across the carpet, getting close to the black wolf. He kept his ears forwards, muzzle low to the ground and yipped again.

Again Kurt growled. Deoran was about six inches from Kurt when the big wolf went from showing teeth to standing up. For a long second Deoran thought he had misjudged the act, and Kurt’s fangs were about to slice down and bring cold sharp death to him, but from the corner of one eye the little red wolf saw Kurt’s bushy tail twitch. He raised himself up, very carefully, on shaking legs and pressed his muzzle under Kurt’s chin. He sprang back, tail waggling in the air, head down and barked. In comparison Kurt’s bark was a like a thunderclap, but his ears were forwards, his tail was up, and when Deoran turned he knew the black wolf was following him.

Eight paws raced downstairs, ran circles around each other and made for the garden. Deoran barked and yapped, dashing in between the big wolf’s legs as he twisted and turned, making for the forest. Kurt sprang at him, bowled him over, and let him up. Deoran chased Kurt into the woods. The game went on for what seemed forever as they barked each other round trees, through and over the woods. Deoran led whenever he had to, but subtlety let Kurt pick the direction they travelled in. Even if the black wolf didn’t know it, his body had a destination in mind. Again and again Deoran made it close enough to his companion to push his muzzle under the big wolf’s head, nuzzling his neck in a way that meant trust. More than once Kurt pushed him over, and Deoran let him, paws in the air. Every time Kurt leapt away and continued the game, acting as though it hadn’t happened: a dominant wolf almost scared to be dominant. Kurt was slightly more broken than Deoran had thought.

Leap, spring; run, bark, chase. Deoran knew when they’d reached their destination. On the ridge was a little copse of field maple trees, their new green leaves fully unfurled, and there was large flat stone, jutting out of the landscape. He and the big wolf raced to it, Kurt won, bowled him over and Deoran stayed on his back, turned his head and craned his neck. The black wolf pressed his muzzle into his ruff, then down his chest and belly, licking him once before he huffed, snorted and sat up. Deoran rolled and lay with his tail curved around his feet, watching Kurt look out across the landscape. The big wolf was sad. Deoran knew he had not misread Kurt’s look the previous evening when he had lain in the grass, too lucky to have been injured by his fall. He knew the confusion and hopelessness, the feeling nothing would ever be right again. Kurt sat looking out at his world, apparently not seeing anything.

Deoran shifted as quickly and quietly as he could, and sat cross legged on the sun baked stone, the warmth coming down around him as good as a blanket. He laid his hands on his folded knees.

“I was like every other teenage wolf.” It was as good a start as any, and Kurt flicked an ear in his direction to show that he was listening. “There were no worries, no issues. I knew my place, I’d found the boy I wanted to mate with. My world was complete.” He paused long enough for the wolf to whine at him. Deoran gulped. Now he’d started the story and he found that he could speak it, he wanted to finish. “We were running in the woods, playing, not really paying attention to anything but each other. We were young and stupid and in love. I raced him across the road. It was a game.”

The sick wet thud of flesh and fur and bone on tarmac.

“I made it. He didn’t.”

The screech of tyres and engines. The shouts of humans.

“It was my fault. I was older, responsible. I was so scared of what I’d done that I ran away.”

Three days. Three days of running and hitch hiking. He’d run until after dark. He’d crept into a house and stolen clothes from the laundry. He hitched a lift with a thumb in bare feet, heading away, just away. As far from his home territory, from the body of the boy he’d loved, as far as he could from his wolf. He needed a big city, big enough to get lost in, where one more skinny homeless teenager wouldn’t make anyone suspicious.

Winter had come quickly in the cold without fur. The wolf scared him, petrified him in his own head, until he could not bring himself to change at all. He would wake, in parks or under bridges, wearing his fur and change back as soon as he found his clothes. A small russet red wolf can pass easily for a dog or an urban fox in the city at night. He begged for food, ignored every need and desire of his wolf mind, and debased his existence to a mad scramble for scraps outside restaurant bins. He grew thinner and weaker every day. Eight months, all through the autumn and winter, to the spring that never came. Eight months he existed with maybe four involuntary changes in shape, perhaps seven hot meals from soup kitchens and one night indoors when he’d been the first to an abandoned house before the hard heads and druggies had moved in on it. Eight months ignoring the wolf, with nothing to think of except the fight to survive and nothing he could remember but the blood on fur and asphalt.

One morning he had woken too cold to move, too weak to wake properly, and shifted forms in the alley where he lay. A starving wolf looks very much the same as a dead dog to an uneducated human. When the men in overalls came with net and crate and blankets Deoran had prayed for a swift death, even though he didn’t deserve it. He had hoped that he had done enough damage, ignored his wolf side long enough for it to kill him before the humans found out what he was.

The following morning he had woke to find himself not in a cage, not surrounded by the smells and noise of other abandoned strays, but in a clean-ish room lying on something soft, and staring at the young man who had rescued him. Spiky black hair, piercings and tattoos let him know a little bit about him, but the appearance of food distracted his nose more. Chicken and bacon, cooked too, and cut up into little pieces. The young man fed him by hand, spoke to him, and when Deoran had tuned his mind into the conversation he had found that the man had spoken like he knew what he was. It was a shock to realise that he had ignored his wolf so long that he had basically broken his sense of smell permanently.

His physical recovery had taken weeks. Every shift left him drained, but the mini-alpha of the Maiwand Lion stray pack, for that was who the tattooed twenty five year old had been, insisted on daily changes. He had ignored his wolf long enough for it to nearly kill him. It had cost him his nose, his sense of smell, and nearly cost him his whole existence. Regardless of how well his body worked, his mind was worse. He would scream when someone touched him, shake and shiver in the presence of other wolves until his legs and bladder gave way. Tam had been unbelievably patient with him considering he was a twenty five year old metal head who had moved into the centre of Reading for the festival and never moved back, forming a little splinter pack of strays and lost boys too moody to stay at home. Tam had saved him from himself, saved him from the mad rushes of self-hatred that had made him try and lay open his veins. Had sat up with him night after night while he cried himself to sleep and been there in the morning with tea and toast, or chicken, lasagne, shepherd’s pie, depending on shape and the usual lack of fresh milk. Tam and the Maiwand Lion had saved him

He’d been nineteen before he’d been able to actually enter society. It had taken that long to fix him up enough to pass for normal. Tam had almost forced him to enrol in college, finish the formal part of his education that he’d missed. Tam had said he had a ‘damn good brain kiddo, you’d better do something useful with it’. So Deoran had finished up his GCSE’s, taken A-levels and started a four year teaching degree. He stayed home, as moving to halls was out of the question. Tam, approaching thirty and starting to look like a grown-up, had let him, encouraged him with his studies and continued to be kind and patient and caring. He had graduated, taking a one year position to fill in NQT year and by the time he was twenty seven had been ready to re-enter the world properly.

Eleven years had passed since he’d left home, ten years of recovery, of Tam teaching him how often he needed to turn to keep the wolf healthy but at arm’s length. He was far from healed, probably never would be really. Sometimes a hot flood of shame would creep over him, making him wish he was not a wolf at all. But he had stopped actively thinking about trying to kill himself long before and Tam and the other members of the Maiwand Lion, of which he’d been one of the most stable, waved him off in the second hand rusty estate car that would become his most permanent possession and sometimes home.

The same car he had sat in the back of in terror six years later, less than a week ago. The boy who had been the big black wolf, who had turned out to be all wolf without a shred of humanity in him, had driven that car at break neck speed when he had inadvertently wandered into the South Sea pack territory.

“I ignored my wolf Kurt, the same as you did. It nearly killed me. Aliza told me about you; born wolf. You were all wolf and then you were all human. It was never going to work.” Deoran looked down to find the big black wolf was now a ball of pale limbs and thick black hair, tawny eyes wild.

“I did it for Tahryn.” Kurt was crying, salty tears tracking down his face, his eyes rimmed with red and dark circles.

“I know. But Tahryn loves you for being who you are. You’re a werewolf, not a human.”

“I can’t do it.” Kurt sniffed and snivelled. “I can’t be both!”

“You don’t have to Kurt.”

There was a long, long silence punctuated only by sniffles.

“What?”

“You don’t have to be a human and a wolf. You’re a werewolf. One side, one mind, one person.” They were the same words Tam had said to him long ago, when Deoran had looked like Kurt did now. “Your human side and your wolf side are the same thing. You just have to be all Kurt. That’s all.”

“But Tay…”

“He loves you. What you do with him, regardless of who in your relationship is dominant, doesn’t change the way the pack sees you. You have alpha in you boy. Wanting to have your mate fuck you will not change that in the slightest.” Kurt’s throat thrummed with a possessive growl at the mention of his mate and the things they did in private. “See. Better already.”

“You’re a lot smarter than I thought you were.” Kurt looked grumpy but somehow cheerful, and he was no longer crying. Deoran stood and stepped down from the rock. His legs had gone to sleep beneath him. He was a little clumsy. Kurt snorted.

“Well I’m glad you find me funny. You wanna come back down?”

“I think I’ll stay for a while.”

“Alright.” Deoran turned to leave, but stopped when Kurt said his name.

“Deo? Thank you.”

Deoran smiled.

“Somebody was there to save me. I was there to save you. You’ll be there for someone one day too.” The words left Kurt looking thoughtful. Deoran shifted and sniffed the air, frowning. There was something there, on the breeze, and that was new. As he trotted down the hill towards the cul-de-sac he was starting to think of as being home, a tiny hope grew.