System of a Wolf - 18. Chapter 18

Gara groaned as he crawled into his bed. It wasn’t often that he felt the results of Erith’s work, and he couldn’t remember the last time he felt this bad. It wasn’t just his muscles that ached; the wolf’s stomach was twisting. All the cookies Lynn had eaten were fighting him now, and it was agonizing.

More than that though, he could feel Erith in his mind. The elf wasn’t sleeping anymore, he was wide awake, if lost in the fog that was their head. That was a new development.

Gara would have been thrilled, if Erith and Varen weren’t locked in a heated debate about Blake. He didn’t know why the two couldn’t play nice. They both wanted what was best for Blake, what was best for everyone. It just seemed they had very different understandings of what that meant.

The wolf couldn’t take sides. He liked Blake, he wanted what was best for the werewolf, but it made more sense to let the werewolf decide what was best for himself. He was more concerned about keeping Lynn safe. The neko had been through so much already. She did not need to deal with arguing elves.

Not that the elves seemed to think about that. They were too busy arguing about whether Varen was allowed to have sex with Blake. Gara didn’t see why that mattered. Blake wanted to have sex; the wolf had smelled the urges all over the mage. But if Erith didn’t want to have sex, he didn’t have to. Why couldn’t Varen do it for him?

‘See? Even Gara gets it.’

‘And yet I’m the one who’s going to get it.’

‘Fine, I’ll front until any burn is gone. You won’t feel a thing.’

‘And what are you going to do at my work? You don’t know anyone there, you know nothing about landscaping, you could hurt us all, just to get some dick.’

The wolf yawned widely, slowly getting to his feet. He was sore, tired, but there was no way he was getting any sleep tonight. His pack was feeling rowdy after the full moon. Maybe things would be better by the new moon, but for now, Gara was just going to suffer through their arguing.

Padding out to the kitchen, he sniffled around, seeking out any scraps of food that might remain. His nose led him to the open back door, and Gara’s head shot up.

The back gate was open.

‘Shit!’

‘Can’t lock him up anymore,’ Varen snorted.

No, he was a free wolf, and Gara already knew exactly what he was going to do with his freedom.

He bounded out of the backyard, racing down the street. It was hard to pick up the smell of werewolves through the gas that filled the air, but his nose did its job. Erith was trying to coax him back to the house, but he wasn’t going to listen. This time, the wolf was in charge of himself, and he was going to take full advantage.

Ten minutes later, Gara slowed in front of the North Astaran pack house. The gate was closed, an elf sitting back in a small hut. A quiet yip grabbed her attention.

“Oh, hey there.”

The words were muffled through a heavy glass, but his ears could just barely make them out. The glass was pulled back, and the elf leaned out, frowning at him.

“You’re a new wolf, huh? I don’t think I’ve seen you around. A little late for a full moon run, don’t you think?”

Gara huffed quietly, staring at the gate that separated him from his friend. Licking his lips, the wolf paced back and forth, waiting for the gates to open. He was a werewolf too; he should be allowed in the complex.

“I’m sorry buddy, but you’re not in our system,” the elf frowned at him. “I can’t let you in without permission.”

‘Turn around Gara. Go home.’

‘No, find Blake. We need to make things right with him.’

‘Why can’t we play with Blake?’

Gara whimpered as his head filled with the voices of his pack. Everyone was talking all at once, and he needed to take a break. But he was the only one who could work in this body. Maybe if he let one of the elves take over-

‘NO!’

The reprimand stunned the wolf, echoing through his head as the elves finally agreed on something.

“Hold on, I’ll get you a blanket and we can sort this out,” the guard said, closing the window again.

She hurried out of the hut and across the carpark.

‘I’m going to talk to Blake.’

‘No, we’re going home. You would just scare him away.’

Gara grunted, laying down in front of the gate.

‘We need to go home Gara. I’ll talk to Blake tomorrow. Right now is not a good time.’

‘No, let me out when she comes back. I can handle this.’

It had been a horrible idea to come here. If he went on, one of the elves would have to deal with this. Worse, whoever he didn’t choose would hate him. Gara was just relieved no one was trying to take control forcefully. He hated when they did that. Granted, it was usually Varen who needed to take over, to help keep Erith safe, but Lynn had been getting a little pushy lately. It was only a matter of time before she started pushing more and more, especially now that she knew she could.

Whimpering as he stood up again, the wolf turned around, tail tucked between his legs. Heading home was one of the hardest things he had ever done. Not least because he really had no idea of where home was.

‘It is the right thing to do,’ Erith said in his mind, guiding him back to their home..

He felt Varen retreating, the other elf a broiling mess of frustration. Even by not picking a side, Gara had upset someone. He couldn’t figure out how to keep everyone happy, and that just made him feel worse. But at this point, Gara was so exhausted, he wasn’t sure it mattered. As soon as he got back inside, the wolf collapsed in a bed, fast asleep.

The brush made a soothing sound, rasping over the tub. It was always a pain dealing with the smell of bleach, but Blake found the act of cleaning almost soothing to his mind. A mindless, repetitive task, one that kept him busy while allowing him time to think.

Had it been long enough? Would Erith be upset if he called now? The mage had no idea how to judge this. The elf had been one of his few friends, and the only friend who even bothered to get back in touch with him after he left school. Even if they couldn’t be mates, Blake didn’t want to lose him.

But how could he even think about being friends with the elf when he kept imagining him in bed, kept thinking about how wonderful it would be to let the elf breed him?

Blake scrubbed even harder at the tub, as though he could scrub away the thoughts in his mind if he just worked hard enough. Every scrape of the bristles was like a scrape across his mind, back and forth, digging through invisible dirt.

Rinsing out the brush and letting the shower wash the remnants of the cleaner away, Blake finally stood up. He gave himself a moment to stretch, checking his phone for the time. It had barely been fifteen minutes since Dr. Marin had left, and the man winced. Too much time, and yet not enough time at all. He didn’t want to be left alone with his thoughts all day.

Blake finished cleaning the bathroom quickly before heading to his bedroom. He pulled off his clothes and let his body melt into his wolf. If he wasn’t going to be free of his thoughts, he’d find somewhere better to deal with them.

The black wolf pushed through the wolf door, walking through the complex until he reached the gym. Passing through another door, he made his way over to a treadmill. The machine turned on with a few presses from his nose, and Blake began walking, letting his legs work as he stared up at a screen with a football game on it. Astaran Foxes against Mydaran Eagles. It was a fun game, if not really Blake’s favourite way to watch TV.

There was a sudden thump next to him, and the treadmill beside him turned on. Glancing over, Blake frowned at the sight of Jason wearing a frightening large backpack on his back. It seemed like it had come straight from a history book, and the wolf could tell it was heavy.

‘Research,’ the neko signed at his curious gaze.

Blake snorted, turning back to his game as he continued walking. He kept an eye on Jason though. The neko was walking startlingly fast with all that weight, nearly three and a half miles per hour from what the wolf could see of his screen. There was no way he could keep that pace up, not unless he had been building toward it.

To be honest, the wolf was surprised to see Jason here. Granted, the neko was an honorary member of the pack, so long as Devyn remained a member, but neither of them lived on pack grounds, and Blake would have thought the neko would find a closer gym to work at.

Unless, of course, this was the only gym that would allow him to do whatever this was. It was funny, Blake had always thought of himself as weird. Maybe he wasn’t as weird as he thought.

But when they were approaching the three mile mark, the wolf started feeling maybe this wasn’t just Jason being weird. The neko was pushing on, a stubborn look on his face as his hands clenched the bars of the treadmill. Blake wasn’t sure exactly how heavy that bag was, but he didn’t like the look of the neko. He was hurting, and not in the good way people hurt after a work out. Even Blake’s legs were starting to burn after nearly an hour on the treadmill. How Jason could expect himself to do this was beyond the wolf’s understanding. Back at school, they only ever ran three miles at most.

Nosing the treadmill off, the wolf waited for it to slow to a stop before bouncing off. He trotted over to a large water bowl, waiting for a wolf to move aside before grabbing his own drink.

Blake made his way toward a staff member, grabbing his attention with a huff. He led the man over to where Jason was still moving on the treadmill, a whimper escaping the wolf’s maw.

“Mr. Farin, can you get off for a quick moment?” the man asked.

Sweat filled with scent, Jason’s body filled with a numb pain that sent acid throughout his body. It made Blake whimper in sympathy as the machine was turned off. Sure, Jason had done this to himself, but the wolf was still not happy someone was hurting.

“Blake, go ahead and give us some space,” the man said, helping Jason sit down slowly.

Blake backed away, staring at Jason nervously. The neko was sweating heavily, his face slowly returning to a normal colour.

“Guards aren’t supposed to carry more than fifty five pounds, you know,” the man said quietly, hefting the bag. “I’m pretty sure this is almost sixty five, maybe even seventy.”

Jason nodded silently, his chest heaving. Blake waited patiently as he was checked over, before carefully crawling back to the neko. Resting his head on Jason’s leg, the wolf tried to rub his legs. They would be hurting later, but if he could do anything to make them feel better, Blake was going to try.

He was just grateful that images of Erith had stopped flashing through his head.