Born Wolf - 21. Chapter 10.2

Daisy Chen checked her hair in the mirror and skimmed her fingers over her outfit one last time. She liked to make an effort for wedding services, even ones as quick and rushed as this one was going to be. A shotgun wedding, and a double too. The paperwork had all come from head office, the couples had been checked out independently, she just needed to do the ceremony for them. Daisy pulled the collar of her blouse straight and re-read the list of names again. Tahryn and Kurt, and Jene and Chaska, it was such an odd collection. Apparently they would be providing their own witnesses and the music didn’t matter. It was nearly time, and Daisy stepped out of her office, put her head round the door of the ceremony room to check that her assistant had laid everything out and walked with her high heels clicking sharply, along to the main foyer.

Normally fast and loose weddings generally had the couple and perhaps a few close friends, maybe even nice strangers they’d picked up to be witnesses. Neither couple were keeping their names, instead changing them to things completely different. That was strange and unusual. Daisy was surprised to find such a large group of people waiting in the foyer. There were men and woman and children of every age all together, a classic big family wedding. As she stepped down into the mass the throng part to reveal the four young people. And they were young.

Both girls were stunning in their own ways, both boys handsome. The first couple were blond and lovely, the girl wearing a classic white strapless dress, her long wavy hair falling loose over her shoulders and perfect skin. She clung to the arm of a young man so broad he must have given rugby stars a run for their money with pale blue eyes and a dazzling smile. They would have such lovely children. The other girl was slender, whip thin, and wearing a dress of many layers of what looked like unbleached cotton. She was dainty and elfin, her features delicate. The boy she was fussing over looked deeply uncomfortable in a suit, his dark hair gently mussed, and golden eyes wary. His neck was marked with purple bruises. The brown haired girl was obviously much more of hell cat than she looked. He pulled nervously at his collar and Daisy coughed politely into her hand.

“If the brides and grooms would like to follow me, we can begin.”

The big blond young man smiled and gestured with one arm.

“Ladies first.” The two girls let go of their men and joined hands. They embraced and kissed with a passion that registered shock on Daisy’s face as the smaller teenager went to stand in the curved arm of the other man.

“Oh…I…the names…”

“It’s not a problem is it?” The pale young man growled. One look in his tawny eyes and Daisy realized should her answer be negative, her immediate future would go very badly.

“No! No, no, no. It’s fine, just surprising. OK, so…Jene Camra and Chaska Spencer right?”

“Yes.” The curvy blond girl smiled at her. “We would like to be married now pleased.”

The whole thing went off without a hitch. Every guest filed into their seats at random, there seemed to be no immediate family, although they all seemed like a family to Daisy in the way they laughed and talked. It was good. The girls smiled at each other all the way through, held hands and gazed at each other while they repeated the lines. The boys had to be physically prompted to speak, and they watched each other as though there was much going on between them that no one else could hear. Neither couple exchanged rings. When Daisy got to the bit at the end, the big photo finish, Chaska and Jene Lowell kissed each other like they were delighted with the feel of each other, their slender smooth bodies locked together. Kurt and Tahryn Ulrich kissed like the world didn’t exist, as though they were the centre of the universe and the planet revolved around them. They played the standard music, and no one seemed to notice anyway, and the two couples signed the register with their new names. Every one of their witnesses hugged them, many lingered, and Daisy smiled to herself to see two couples so very much in love.

She hoped they had better luck than many of the other couples who got hitched too young.

*

Jene clasped her mate’s hand to her chest and giggled. She was married, married to the girl she loved. Chaska took the clasped hands back and kissed her palm gently.

“You alright there wife?” Chaska’s indigo eyes sparkled.

“That sounds silly.” Jene pressed against her beloved as Kurt and Tahryn came up behind them. “Hey brother.” Kurt hugged her quickly. “You like being married?”

Kurt stretched, rolled his shoulders and removed his tie.

“I feel no different.” Kurt began handing off the uncomfortable bits of his tuxedo to Tahryn. “It’s just some silly human thing.” He purred under Tahryn’s hand in his hair. “I was Ulrich before they told me I was.”

“I like Lowell,” Tahryn kept a hand on his new husband, possessive of the smaller boy. “How’d you come up with it?”

“It means little wolf, or at least, a variant of it.” Chaska grinned at her older brother and punched him on the arm. “Dude we’re married!”

“For a minute there we nearly were.” Jene put her free arm around the wolf-boy who had become much more than her pack brother. “The look on her face!”

“You didn’t have to growl at her like that Kurt.” Chaska jabbed her new brother-in-law in the ribs. “It was mean.”

“Well she was stupid.” They reached the big pick-up Carson had given Kurt and the boy jangled the keys. “I am so driving.”

“I am not getting in there with you.” Jene folded her arms and shook her said. “You nearly rolled Dad’s truck last week.”

“I’ve driven since then.” Kurt pouted and Tahryn ruffled his waxed hair. Jene sighed, she’d spent so long trying to make her little wolf brother look presentable, but Kurt seemed to be naturally scruffy, and deeply uncomfortable in his tux. He looked more himself now, shirt un-tucked and top three buttons undone. Tahryn still looked like a perfect vision, if you were into that. Jene snuggled herself into the softness of her partner as they got into the back of the truck. Kurt had said needing Tahryn had hit him like a million ton freight train, but Chaska’s scent had crept up on her without either of them apparently noticing.

Jene had never known one way or the other about her sexuality. There had been flings, boys and girls and pretty human things who were good distractions, but that damn scent had just wound its way into her brain and set hooks into her. And Jene was glad. She had a mate, a beautiful, strong, powerful beta female who would set Kurt and Tahryn to rights whenever they stepped out of line, and they were going to be a pack together. It was Friday, they had their last pack meeting tonight before they all went to the new site, and Degan had promised to make it a wedding reception to remember. Her father had spent the day taking down the fence between her house and her grandfather’s and there was a big white wedding cake they would slice and take silly pictures.

Kurt probably wouldn’t join in much, but there might be one photo of the four of them, one decent one at least. They would run in the forest, bay for blood and Kurt would howl to the starry night, the moon busy hiding from them, to let the world know of his joy. It would be perfect because it would be theirs.

Later, lying on the grass, dress discarded in favour of fur, Jene found herself wondering about the new site, the place where they would live together. They were together now, even though Degan had said they were as welcome as they had ever been. It was a force like gravity that drew the new pack together. Kurt was lying beside her with little Yulva mauling his front paws with her tiny mouth. David lay close by, watching his daughter with his head on his paws. Tahryn was dressed in nothing but his tuxedo slacks having changed back from their run. Isla snuggled beside her brother; the silky blonde shape of her lovely Chaska on the girl’s other side. Henry seemed torn between being wolf and human and had settled in his skin for now. He still seemed a little uneasy, as though worried he might piss off the big black wolf.

Jene whined and flipped an ear at Kurt. Her new alpha, still in some way’s her little brother, grinned and lolled his tongue. Tahryn translated for everyone else, his thought link with Kurt coming in handy now that it went both ways.

“The new site is on the river, the big loopy one. I think their called ox bow lakes hun,” Tahryn smiled without showing his teeth and Kurt huffed and flicked his ears back and forwards. “He says it’s big, lots of trees and access to the river with a…landing stage? No, a jetty thing for kayaks and stuff.” Kurt yapped at his mate, who apparently wasn’t doing a great job of interpreting. “And a kitchen.”

“Sounds nice,” Isla snuggled against her brother. “Hey when d’you think I’ll get my change?”

Jene wagged her tail and whined. When someone hit the age where their body decided to change was an unknown quantity, everyone was different. Isla was the only member of their pack who didn’t have fur. She was close though, any idiot could smell it. Jene doubted if it would be more than a year.

“Soon enough pup,” Henry smiled at his new pack sister, “soon enough. I can’t wait to go see it.” He put his hands behind his head and stretched out on the grass, head to the centre of their little circle. Yulva finished playing with Kurt’s fur and began to part waddle, part squirm her way over to him. “Did Degan chose the name? What’s it mean?”

Kurt harrumphed and shook his head. Carefully he stood and took hold of Yulva before she started to gum Henry’s fingers.

“Henry you are dense sometimes.” Tahryn sighed and rubbed his hands through his mate’s fur as he passed him. “What do you reckon you can see from there? You know, big and white and carved into the side of the hill?”

“Oh…” The assemble werewolves chuckled as Henry made the connection in his head. “There’s that big white horse isn’t there?”

The rest of the world largely ignored the members of the Chalk Horse Hill pack as they chatted and growled late into the night.

*

Tahryn collapsed onto the grass next to his little blue vintage car and put his head in his hands, wondering what on earth he’d done in some previous life to screw up this badly. In theory, moving was simple, you packed your stuff and moved. In actuality…

“There’s nothing here,” Tahryn wasn’t sure who he was complaining too, he was basically alone. “How are we going to live like this?”

He and Kurt were a scant few months from graduating, Chaska had another year. Of the eight of them, only David and Jene had jobs. And now his actions and lack of respect for the council of the South Sea pack had forced them to move out of the territory to this campsite which was theirs, which they owned, and he had no idea where they were going to live.

“What have I done?”

‘Who died and made you alpha?’ Kurt’s voice in his head was quick and sharp, ‘You didn’t do this to us. We both did it together.’ The man he loved, dressed in baggy sweats and a wife beater t-shirt, appeared around the side of his truck like a sun hazed, lusty day dream. Tahryn suddenly found it much harder to concentrate on his problems when Kurt looked at him like that.

“And where are we going to live pup? It’s all fine us two saying we’ll sleep it rough but we have six other people to look after. We’re responsible now we’re-”

“We’re the alphas.” Kurt finished the sentence in a much calmer voice. “It’s warm out, we’ll camp. You worry too much.”

“But there’s nothing here.” Tahryn exhaled heavily. It was so hard to see the upside of this situation. The first night sleeping in separate houses, interspersed with the old pack hadn’t been easy on any of them and Kurt had shifted forms and twisted all night to the point where Tahryn had ended up sleeping alone while Kurt shuddered and shivered from his nest in the corner. They’d all decided to come out to the new site with a view of staying out there, or at the very least, setting up a bit more permanently.

“Babe there’s plenty here.” Kurt knelt down before him, warm hands on his knees. “You just can’t see the woods for the trees.”

“You know, I never understood that phrase.” Tahryn hissed as Kurt’s weight settled over him, receiving the signals Kurt was broadcasting loud and clear, that he should lay back and relax. “Here? Really?” ‘We’re gonna get caught.’

‘By who?’ Kurt was already undoing the cord of his tracksuit slacks, thin fingers nimble as he slipped beneath the fabric. After he and Kurt had mated there had been even less excuse to actually use underwear. ‘Everyone else has gone into the village for snacks and supplies. It’s just you and me and nature babe.’

‘Is that right?’ Kurt’s breath was warm on his thickening erection. There was no way he could resist those big honey brown eyes. Kurt had thought being submissive gave Tahryn the power, but right now, Tahryn could barely breathe under the onslaught of his gaze. He moaned as Kurt’s lips closed around the head of his cock, flicking at him with his tongue.

‘I figure we should christen the new territory.’

“Oh Christ…” Tahryn wound his fingers into Kurt’s thick hair as he sank down along his length, warm enveloping heat focusing his mind beautifully. Kurt’s mind was wrapped around his own and Tahryn saw all of the things he’d been missing. They were free, in their own land; the sky was blue and full of birds, the sun was shining, and the grass was green. Kurt moaned around his erection and Tahryn growled.

‘You’re blushing.’ Kurt’s fingers gripped his hips, his narrow body pressing against Tahryn’s legs, his own hardness digging into the grass, ‘Am I better?’

“Fuck… Kurt!” Tahryn half snarled, pleasure snapping at all his nerve endings. ‘You’re gonna kill me with that.’

Kurt hummed again and Tahryn looked down at his mate. Blue and golden brown eyes met, and Kurt smiled with is lips locked around his lover. Tahryn dug his fingers into the ground, hips snapping up to meet the blast furnace heat of Kurt’s mouth. There was no warning, no sudden tightness, just Kurt’s happy growl vibrating through his body as he came.

‘Ungh…fuck, Kurt!’ Tahryn stared at his mate as Kurt pulled back, the thick spurts of Tahryn’s orgasm landing directly on his tongue. He grinned. ‘God that’s sexy.’

Kurt swallowed and sat up.

“You feel better now babe?”

Tahryn groaned, reached out and pulled Kurt back down onto his chest. It made him happy to lie there in the sun with his mate curled against him. Kurt was warm and smelt like raw earth and sex. Tahryn felt he could simply lie there for the rest of his life. There was the rumbling of an engine and Tahryn lifted his hips and pulled up his slacks. Kurt made to get up and Tahryn wrapped him up in his arms and held him tight.

“Stay.”

“Alright.” Kurt laid his head in the soft curve of Tahryn neck and shoulder. “This is nice.”

“Tay! Kurt!” Isla’s shrill voice reached them before she did. “What are you two doing down there?” Kurt buried his face in his mate’s t-shirt to hide his smirk. “Ewww! Chaska! Tahryn and Kurt have been having sex!”

The barks of laughter followed as they got up and headed with the other members of their pack to the largest building on the new campsite. There were three actual buildings on site, and all three had plumbing. The concrete landing stage that sloped into the water had a small warehouse attached which housed space for kayaks and water sports equipment and had a small shower and toilet block. There was the main showers and bathrooms block, six stalls of each, which was in pretty good condition, newly tiled and with a definite lack of spiders, and the main mess hall.

The mess hall was a long low building with a bare concrete floor and a construction of American frontier style logs. At one end was a large industrial kitchen and Chaska had already cooed over the six ring gas burner and the huge two level oven. There was a big walk in fridge and couple of chest freezers along with a deep double porcelain sink. There was also no power. The main part of the room had long wooden picnic style benches taking up the main part and it was around one of these the eight members of the new Chalk Horse Hill pack congregated. Henry knuckled his friends shoulder and Jene sniffed disdainfully.

“You guys are gonna do that everywhere aren’t you?”

Kurt arched a dark brow and rubbed his pack-sister’s shoulder.

“Probably.” He shrugged. “How was the village?”

“Quaint. Cute,” Jene tuned out a bag of mixed fruit and went looking for a bowl, “nice people.”

Kurt was distracted by Yulva’s mewling. David had gotten better with her, less blankets, more body contact, but she still preferred being with Kurt, and wouldn’t feed except when he did it. David handed over his daughter to his alpha and Tahryn grinned.

“How is baby girl?”

‘Don’t call her that.’ Kurt grumbled in his head as he cradled the puppy against his chest. “Do we have any more formula?”

David dug around in the puppy bag and pulled out a bottle.

“It’s not warm, we have a microwave right?”

“No power,” Kurt shrugged and tucked the bottle right up under his arm, “Give it a minute and it’ll get warmer. What did you guys find?”

As well as the fruit, lunch turned out to compromise of four loaves of crusty bread and half the deli counter from the village store. Chaska had had the foresight to buy milk and cereal, jam and peanut butter. The milk got packed into a cool box along with a bunch of ice packs. David began to assemble sandwiches using the limited supply of kitchen equipment they’d brought with them. Henry found a stack of plates and helped. Soon enough all that could be heard was the sound of seven werewolves and one puppy eating. Kurt lay against his partner, the little wolf cub propped on his chest, suckling away.

“When will the power be back on?” Henry wiped mustard off his chin, and started across the table at the new alphas. “We need a plan.”

“Degan said we should get power tomorrow, probably in the afternoon. The phone line will come on next week sometime.” Tahryn put his head in his hands. “We’re going to have to go back to South Sea.”

‘Babe…’ Kurt’s voice in his mind was warning.

“I can’t ask you guys to live like this.”

“It’s warm out.” David shrugged. “It’s a campsite, we’ll camp.”

“And when we get another cold day?”

Kurt growled at his mate, but stopped when Yulva ceased feeding and whimpered.

‘Tay, don’t do this. They didn’t follow us blindly.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Tahryn touched his lips to Kurt’s hair, ‘They came because loyalty told them to.’ Even Tahryn’s thoughts sounded depressed.

‘We need to be strong for them.’

“Tahryn?” Henry sighed across the table. “You didn’t ask us to move, we just did. We’ll rough it for a while. It’ll be fine.”

“It’ll be fun!” Isla swung her legs over the bench and stared up at the ceiling. “We can have camp fires and toast marshmallows.”

“I cannot live on a diet of marshmallows, little bit.” Kurt ruffled the girl’s hair. “But sure, we can have a real camp fire, just for you.”

“Yay!”

‘Pushover.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Yes please.’ Tahryn put down the remainder of his sandwich. “There are four concrete bases laid for cabins that never got built.”

“Well the planning permission is already in place, so we just have to build them.” Chaska replied easily.

“Yes, because we build houses every day.” Tahryn sighed.

Chaska stood and collected the empty plates.

“Come help out in here Tahryn.”

Tahryn gathered the rest of the cutlery and followed his slightly younger sister into the big kitchen. He was not looking forwards to this conversation. The plumbing was on, and the water from the roof top storage tank was pretty warm from the solar. They managed to wash up using dish soap and nearly hot water. Chaska had been in charge of kitchen duty for as long as Tahryn could remember, and he and Mehran had washed up.

“I miss her.”

“Me too.” Chaska handed him the tea towel. “We need to talk about staffing.”

“Shouldn’t Kurt be here?” Tahryn began building a stack of clean dry crockery.

“I’m beta. I get to give advice.” Chaska prodded him in the sternum. “You are scaring them. You need to be stronger.”

“I’m trying!”

“Not enough!” His sister gritted her teeth. “As lovely as Isla’s vision is, you are right to be worried. And we can’t rely too much on Degan, it makes us look weak.”

“We have no money.” Tahryn sank his forehead onto his fists on the counter.

“Not true, we have some. And a bank account to put it in.” Chaska rubbed her brother’s shoulders, “We’ll be OK. Now about these houses.”

“Cabins.”

“Fine. We need to make some calls. I’ll deal with the taxes and getting the phone and the web up and running. I’ll cook, you make us somewhere to live and Kurt can mark the territory. Staffing.”

“You think Henry would make a good enforcer?”

“Yeah. Put David in negotiations. He’s good at it, especially now that he’s head warden for the forest. Jene’s going to try and transfer to the local nursery school. They have an opening.”

“Good. Where are we going to sleep tonight?” Tahryn hopped up onto the melamine counter before Chaska swatted at him. “And four cabins aren’t going to be enough.”

“So we’ll expand at some point. And we have tents and sleeping bags. We’ll go rough for a couple of nights.”

“More than a couple.” Tahryn sighed, and then felt the pressure of Kurt in his mind.

‘Try not to worry too much Tay. Now come run with us.’

The rest of the afternoon passed with planning and dashing about. David drove Jene and Chaska back to South Sea to collect pretty much everything from David’s kitchen, as he was the only one who had actually owned one of his own before. They returned with bedding and clothes as well and instructions to collect furniture as soon as they were able. Kurt took Henry around the perimeter of the campsite carrying Yulva in his teeth. They marked the trees and the fence posts along the border. It was an eighty berth campsite, studded with trees, and Kurt made sure one of them marked every single one. The actual territory was larger, but this would keep out foxes, badgers and all other nasally equipped night time wanderers. There were new rulers in the valley.

Tahryn swept out the mess hall and the kitchen and had a proper look around the waterfront with Isla, who ran everywhere in bare feet like she belonged there, and helped for a certain value of the word. The part of the site that backed onto the river had a little slightly warped wooden jetty as well as the concrete boat ramp. There were a couple of big tow ropes and the metal sided shed with the shower stalls at one end held a couple of lockable cages for equipment and two racks for holding kayaks.

“Are we going to get kayaks and go on the water?” Isla asked him, bouncing up and down. Her feet were black, and in nothing apart from her short spring dress with grass stains on her knees she looked as wild as Kurt ever did.

“Maybe.” Tahryn wondered if his little sister understood how worried he was. Kurt seemed less concerned about their potential money troubles. The bank was dealing with the loan over the weekend, rush job from London, and Roger had told them they would have the money and the business accounts all up and running on Monday. Degan had moved over David’s portion of the pack savings. Everyone contributed a percentage, no wolf ever got left out in the cold when their job up and moved across the country without them. Tahryn had the feeling more had been moved across, for him and Kurt, Jene, Chaska and Isla. As much as Henry’s parents loved him, Tahryn doubted they would financially support a pack run by the wolf that had killed their eldest son.

“We can run camp.”

“Kurt said we were going to have a fire already.”

“No, I mean camp, like when we went away with primary school and did rock climbing and stuff.” Tahryn stared at his sister in shock. “We can do wild camping and Kurt could teach animal tracking in the forest. We can run it like an adventure centre.”

“How do you think of these things Isla?”

“Well it’s all here isn’t it?” The metal racks tinked as she ran her fingers across them. “And we have to make money somehow. Kurt and Chaska can run the campsite while you work at the garage. I’ll be here in the summer and weekends and stuff. Henry can help out David in the forest maybe. It all works.”

Tahryn grabbed his sister and bundled her up in his arms.

“You’re a genius Isla!” He buried his face in her hair while she hugged his head, the familiar scent of love and family, the spiciness they’d got from their mother. “You can have all the marshmallows you want!”

*

David sat with his head on his paws and watched the big black wolf feeding Yulva. The little cub was getting stronger and stronger every day, eating so much her belly distended with fullness. It was a good thing for a puppy her age. They were out of formula, and David had assumed they couldn’t make any more until the power and the gas came back on. The formula was made of egg yolks, evaporated milk, golden syrup and yoghurt, but the water to make it the right consistency had to be boiled first. No power and no gas to boil the on-the-hob kettle they’d found in the kitchen had worried David until little Isla had taken over. The girl had simply filled the kettle from the tap and declared that she’d deal with it. Apparently this meant stashing a bunch of rocks in the heat of the fire in order to boil water, and while this had the side effect of turning the kettle black with soot on the outside, so far Isla seemed pleased with the results.

Yulva was his cub, the last connection he had to his wife. He should feel awful about letting Kurt be the one to feed her, clean her, connect with her; but he didn’t. Kurt was the only wolf possibly ever, to know what it was like: who was in many ways, the same as little Yulva. She was going to need that connection with their pack’s alpha, or one of them at least. She was snuggled up in Kurt’s thick pelt, nuzzling into him happily. Tahryn sat with his arm around his alpha, fingers just touching the pup’s fur, and they looked like a little family, they were perfect. Tahryn had recommended he spend a lot of time wearing fur, and actually the pack were all generally going with fur a lot of the time, except for Isla. Currently the little girl was sitting with her back in Henry’s red brown fur, toasting marshmallows on a stick while the little kettle of water heated and hummed in the edge of the embers.

They’d managed to set up three tents, people would be sharing tonight. Kurt got up and walked around to David’s side of the fire and placed Yulva carefully between his paws. His heavy chest thrummed, and he rubbed his muzzle over the back of David’s neck, licking at the grey and black fur. David nuzzled his daughter. Kurt lay next to him and flicked an ear. David shrugged. He didn’t know what was best for her, Kurt did. His alpha huffed and nuzzled him again, tail flicking, the wolf instinct to be close to each other.

Night drew in, and David was wondering if little Isla was going to bunk down with him and Yulva, little ones keeping each other warm, when Kurt got up and looked at his mate in a very deliberate manner. Tahryn stood, said goodnight and shifted. The sandy yellow wolf moved around the circle, licking and rubbing, reaffirming his connecting with his pack as alpha. He barked at the black wolf, they chased each other around the circle and then took off, two lightning fast streaks of fur into the darkness that surrounded the campfire.

For the first time the woods of the Chalk Horse Hill pack rang with the laughter and howling of wolves.