Just a Wolf

Dominic

“Can you see anything?” Alpha asks down through the little entrance hole.

“Not much. I think I should shift, maybe it’ll help.”

“Go ahead,” he tells me, and I quickly transform back into my wolf. I’m glad, because now I have fur, and standing down here naked in my human form I was feeling very chilly. Caves are cold.

I sense him shifting too, because his mind-link becomes active again. “Now?” he asks.

I can smell much better now, and the concentration of the rogues’ scent is intense. I can see more too. Wolves are nocturnal, so our night vision is a lot sharper in this form. I take a few steps forward, and begin giving Alpha my report.

“The entrance is narrow and slopes down for a few feet, with a lot of rubble and rocks, but then the floor levels out and the room opens up. It looks like the ceiling is about fifteen feet high, and the walls are about the same across. So I really do think this is a lava tube. I saw one in Lassen County and it looked like this.”

“How far does it go back?”

“Farther than I can see.”

“Anything else in there?”

I move to the sides of the room, investigating everything with my eyes and nose. The floor is very rough, hard even on my tough wolf paws. We’ll need shoes for sure if we come down in human form. And jackets. “They’ve been camping out in here,” I tell him. “There’s some spots where they had fires, and some supplies left behind. A few blankets, dishes, and just a bunch of trash it looks like.”

“Does it look like it is being actively used? Are they planning to come back?”

“Hard to tell. It looks pretty sloppy. There’s a lot of scent, but I think it’s been at least a week or two since anyone was down here.”

“Well, shift and come on back up. We’ll have to return with equipment.”

I move back to the entrance and shift into my human form. I see his human arm sticking into the entrance, to give me a hand up. I clasp his hand and feel his strength as he lifts me back out of the hole. He’s not the Alpha for nothing.

When I have scrambled back up to the surface, he tells me, “Shift back, let’s return to the lodge. Everyone else is already there.”

We lope straight there, not exploring this time, so it only takes a few minutes to return. We shift, get back into our clothes, then Alpha Kanen and Janine come back downstairs. Luna Janine. I need to stop thinking of her as just my old friend from school. I suppose they were waiting up there until there was no further chance of naked men in the living room.

I start heading towards the back of the room with Evan and Theo again, but Alpha Ross says, “No, stay here with us. We want to hear everyone’s report.”

He lets the other teams go first. They pretty much all found the same, rogues’ trails crisscrossing all over the countryside, through the forests, up and down hills, crossing streams, but never concentrating, never leading to any obvious house or den.

He listens carefully to everything they have to say, including Alpha Kanen. Then he says, “We found something else.” I’m eager to hear the way that he describes it, and to see how everyone else reacts to our news.

But he gestures to me and says, “Dominic?”

What?

Oh, shit, he wants me to explain it?

He tilts his head at me and widens his eyes, clearly commanding me to speak. Um, okay.

“Yeah, um, we, uh, found where they’ve been staying,” I say, and want to kick myself for sounding like such an idiot. I’m comfortable with my head buried under the hood of a car, not speaking in front of a room full of pack leaders. I’m just a wolf. Geez.

Alpha Kanen looks at me. “And?” Then I see Janine smirking at me, the way she used to in high school when I was being a dumbass, and for some reason that helps me focus my thoughts.

“We found a hillside of boulders and rocks, and there was air flowing out from behind a flat rock. So I lifted it aside and found a small entrance. I had to shift human to get into it, the opening was pretty small. When I got down there I could see that it was a lava tube, and the rogues had been camping out in it.”

“What’s a lava tube?” Theo asks.

“Um, it’s a long cave, it looks like a tunnel. I guess it happens when a volcano erupts, and the lava flow cools on top but is still moving underneath, then when the lava finishes flowing and it empties out, there is a hollow tube left behind. I’ve seen one out near where we live.”

“How big is it?” Alpha Kanen asks.

“About fifteen feet around, but I couldn’t tell how far back it went, it was too dark to see even in my wolf form, and Alpha told me to come back out.” I pause, then, “Alpha Ross,” I clarify, then feel like a dummy. Obviously that’s who I meant. But nobody laughs at my mistake.

Thankfully he takes over. “I decided to come back, rather than try to explore it further without any equipment. He said that it didn’t seem like anyone had been in there for a week or two, and that tracked with the scent trails we detected. I think they have moved to a different area, but I don’t know for how long. I have to assume they’ll be back, it seems like a perfect shelter for a pack of rogues. I suggest we get some equipment together, then go back in a couple of days to examine it more closely. This might be our best bet for a place to confront them, after they return.”

Alpha Kanen is nodding. “That sounds like the perfect plan. Why don’t we plan to go back out there in two days. That gives us time to pull together the equipment and some teams.”

Janine adds, wryly, “And to, you know, let everybody celebrate Christmas.”

He smiles at her, so much love in his face that it almost hurts to see it. He bends down and kisses the top of her head. “Of course.”

Beta Malcolm asks his Alpha, “Will you be coming back with us now?”

Kanen and Janine meet each other’s eyes, and he gets a little smile on his face. “Not yet. Why don’t you get teams together to come back out here on the 26th, then after we’ve explored the cave we’ll probably head back to the packhouse.”

There’s a little more discussion about planning, which thankfully nobody asks me to express an opinion about. I think I’ve worn out my ability to speak in front of this group.

And besides, there is only one plan that I care about. I have to see Amelia. I’ve been away from her all day, and although it isn’t hurting my heart, it feels like it is hurting my soul. I keep brushing my fingers across my throat, trying to do it when nobody else is looking because it would probably seem weird, and it is the only thing that is keeping me sane. Feeling her little not-mark there reassures me, but it also makes me so, so eager to be back with her again.

I’m very relieved when it’s time to get in the cars and head back to River Moon. And to Amelia.