The Porch Wolf

I tossed the keys to my truck to Brent as I tossed money on the table to cover dinner. “Go get my truck and bring it around to the entrance. Mike, Larry, you too. GO.” They took off running, while I picked Vicki up in my arms. Liv, Anita, and Donna grabbed our coats and their purses and followed me out as I apologized to the waitress near the exit.

We had to go a quarter-way around and down a level to get to the exit by parking garage we had used. Vicki’s screams were attracting attention, with most moving aside while others watched to make sure she wasn’t being abused or taken. The Mall of America has a lot of security, and one of them ran alongside us as we reached the second floor. “Do you need medical assistance,” he asked.

“She’s having an episode, it’s happened before, and her medicine is in the truck,” I replied.

“She’ll be fine,” Liv said. “The truck is here.” We left him at the entrance as we loaded Vicki into the booster seat and buckled her in. Liv got in back with her, and I called Anita to ride shotgun in the truck. Brent went back to drive the rear SUV, while Larry and Donna had the lead SUV. We rolled out of the lot as Anita taught Vicki how to breathe through the pain.

It was a horrible ride. I called Larry as he reached 75 miles an hour as we headed for the Mendota Bridge. “I know you want to hurry home, but we can’t afford to get pulled over. Don’t go more than five miles an hour over the speed limit. You know, drive casual,” I said.

Vicki let loose another scream. “We will. Take care of her.” I ended the call and looked in the mirror; Vicki looked miserable, and Liv was freaking out.

Anita took over the situation while I drove. “Liv, take her out of the booster and lay her clothes down on the floor. She can’t be strapped in the booster as her body changes, and I don’t want anyone to see her or for her to fall off the seat as she moves. As the change comes, her body temperature will go way up, and clothes will feel like they are poking her skin.”

“All of them,” Liv asked as she pulled her sweatshirt off.

“You can leave her panties for now. Vicki, I want you to get on your hands and knees on the floor when Mom sets you down.” It took another minute before she was down there. In the meantime, I told the adults to put on their winter gear before I turned off the heat in the truck and turned the blower up. The subzero weather was a blessing because I could use the cold air to cool her down and not lower the windows.

“How long does this take,” Liv asked.

“For a toddler, an hour or two. Vicki’s doing it at a much older age than normal, so I’m not really sure. I’m hoping we get home before it gets too far along.”

“Her skin is so red!”

“It’s flush from her temperature, and because the fur is getting ready to come out.” Liv reached down to touch her back, and it caused her daughter to scream. “Don’t touch her anymore,” Anita said.

I wished I was able to be back there and help the two through the shift because it was heartbreaking to listen to. Vicki was in a lot of pain, that would come in waves and leave her panting. Liv was out of her mind with worry and unable to do anything. When the bones started to snap and reform, all we could do was offer encouragement.

Anita was a wonder, always positive and even-keeled as she talked Vicki through the change.

It took us fifty-one minutes to make it home. I pulled the truck into the garage, and Vicki was carried right into the kitchen. The table and chairs had been moved out of the way; a tarp was in place under older blankets. Vicki was set down, her young body misshapen and twisted. Her arms and legs were farthest along. “Everyone except Anita and Donna, head downstairs,” I said. I herded them out of the kitchen area to the stairs.

“Stay, unky,” a weak voice said. “Stay.”

I smiled as I turned back to my Sharkbait. “I’ll be here as long as you need me, but I’ll be right back.” I went down the hall to my bedroom, stripped, shifted, and trotted back to the kitchen. “You’re such a brave girl,” I sent to her.

As more of her body shifted, she was no longer able to talk; grunts, screams, and growls were the “Wolfy want out,” she replied. My eyes opened wide at her send.

“She sent to me,” Anita sent with a big smile. “I heard you, Sharkbait!”

“Hi Beta,” she said. “Wolfy say finish soon.”

Anita called her mate and Brent into the room as she told Liv what her daughter had sent. “The change accelerates as it goes, so it won’t be long now.”

Vicki was on her side, fur sprouting along her back. Anita took scissors and cut away her underwear as grey fur started to fill in. Her spine shifted and cracked, sounding like firecrackers as her bones realigned and a tail grew in. “Relax and let your wolf come out, Vicki,” I told her. “She’s going to be a beautiful wolf.”

A scream cut off in the sound of bones breaking and crunching; her face was shifting now. Her jaw extended forward, the teeth changing as it turned into a muzzle. Her ears grew pointed and moved up the side of her head, and her neck thickened and moved up from her broadening chest. Fur was covering her skin now.

A minute later, and it was over. Vicki had passed out from the pain, and in the place of the little girl was now a juvenile wolf the size of a small German shepherd. Her mouth was open, her long tongue hanging out as she panted to catch her breath.

You couldn't miss the smell of her Alpha mantle mixed in with her juvenile wolf.

“She’s so beautiful,” Liv said as Anita motioned for her to go to her daughter. Now that the shift was over, it wouldn’t be painful for her to be touched anymore. “Her fur is so soft!” Vicki started to growl softly, a rumbling deep in her chest as her mother scratched and petted her fur.

“You know what she looks like,” I sent to my other Pack members. Her fur was solid steel-gray on top, moving around to her upper legs. Her belly, chest and up to her lower jaw was white, along with her paws and the tip of her tail. It was a distinctive two-tone color scheme.

“Liv, what does her fur color remind you of,” Anita said with a giggle as she figured it out.

“Gray on top, white on the… oh my God… she’s a LAND SHARK!”

“SHARKBAIT! HOO HA HA,” all the others in the house yelled out in response.

“Could she be anything else,” Brent said with a laugh.

Vicki opened her eyes, looking around at the people in the room. Her tail started to move as she saw my big wolf lying next to her, looking into her eyes. “It’s over, you’re a wolf now,” I told her.

She raised her head, then struggled to her feet. She fell as she tried to move. “Let your wolf take over, if your human mind is in charge, you’ll trip over your paws,” she told her. It took her a few minutes to get the hang of it before she was walking around, sniffing and licking at everyone who had come to see her.

“Tell them to shift and go outside, it’s time to welcome Vicki to the Pack with a quick run,” I told Brent.

He passed the instruction along, and the wolves moved out of Liv’s sight to strip and shift. They filed out the back door and down the stairs as Liv held it open. “Do you want to go along,” Brent asked her.

“How? Oh.” She gave him a smile. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

“You have time. Leo is going to take her out through the garage, so she doesn’t have to learn stairs in the snow,” he said. “He said you should put on your snowmobile gear and a hat.”

She ran up to the apartment to change while I walked Vicki out to the garage. I jumped up and hit the button to open the garage door in front of the snowmobile. Vicki ran under the door, turning to go run up the snowbank on the side of the driveway. “Wait for your mother,” I told her.

“I play! Wolfy fun!”

A few minutes later, Liv came out in her winter gear and climbed on top of Brent’s. Donna was staying behind, and she looked at me. I barked at her as Vicki slid down the snowbank, shaking her fur off at the bottom.

Donna was staying behind, and moved to close the door. “Have fun,” she said. “I’ll make some hot cocoa, and cut up some meat for our new wolf.”

“Let’s go, Miesville Pack,” I said.

“AL-FA LEO!” Vicki said as she ran up by me. I trotted around the side of the garage with Vicki on one side and Brent and Liv on the other. The other wolves were gathering in the back behind the pool fence. I gave a soft howl and started moving faster towards the woods behind my house. I was careful to keep to a pace that Sharkbait was comfortable with. Vicki’s confidence and control improved by the minute, and soon we were in a good run for her. I led them along a path in the woods, turning back after ten minutes and emerging in the back again. We went around to the garage, where Donna had the doors open for us.

Liv hopped off, her smile a mile wide as Brent followed the others into the house. She took off her gear and hung it up again. “Are you going to tell her how to shift back,” she asked me.

“Not until tomorrow,” Anita said as she walked back out into the garage. “The first shift is hard on the body. We’ll feed her and let her body recover overnight. After that, shifting is easy and fast.”

“Unky, bathroom,” she said.

“Follow me, Vicki,” I said. I led her to a sheltered patch of trees behind the house, marking the edges with my scent. She squatted down with her tail out to pee, then dropped a steamer in the snow and ice. “Good job. Let’s go get some food,” I told her.

“Okay.” We ran back in, and this time Liv closed the garage door behind us and let us into the house. All the people inside gave her a cheer and told her how proud they were of her shift.

Donna gave her a bowl of cubed raw steak, which she gobbled up before taking a drink. It didn’t take long for her eyes to close as she laid down in Liv’s lap on the couch by the fire. I’d shifted and dressed, and I could see Liv was exhausted as well. “Let’s take her upstairs, you both should sleep,” I said.

“You’re right,” she said. I picked the small wolf up like a baby and followed Liv towards the stairs. “Today was a lot to deal with. It was hard dealing with the arrangements for my grandmother, it was fun at the Mall, I was close to a breakdown with her shift, and now I’m just so happy for my little girl.”

“You’ve both shown incredible strength with everything that has happened. I knew you had it in you, you’re an overcomer.”

“You’ve been great, too,” I said.

Brent was waiting by the door. “Liv? I don’t want to scare you, but I’m pretty sure my wolf is going to want to be close to you again tonight. He doesn’t like being in the basement.”

She looked at me, and I nodded. “You’ll behave yourself?”

“I won’t go into your bedrooms. I’ll be fine on the floor.”

She let out a breath. “You can sleep on the beanbag or the couch,” she said. “Come on.”

She opened the lock and held the door to her apartment open. “Do you want her in her bed,” I asked.

“Put her in mine, I don’t want her to wake up alone,” Liv told me. I followed her down the hallway, placing Vicki on the comforter at the foot of her bed. When I turned around, Liv grabbed me around the waist and pressed her face to my chest. “Thank you, Leo. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’re family, Liv. Your daughter is my niece, and you are part of my Pack now. We will all protect you, but most of all, we will support and love you.”

She stepped back and wiped her eyes. “Goodnight, Leo.”

I gave Vicki one last pat on the head and turned to go. “Goodnight, Vicki. I’ll make sure Brent stays in line.” She closed the bedroom door behind me.

Brent was already in his wolf form, his clothes folded and on a table next to the couch. “You do not enter her room without an invitation unless it is an emergency,” I told him. “Stay in wolf form until you leave, or she asks you to change. And for Luna’s sake, no dog farts.”

“I’ll behave, Alpha. My wolf is settled now.”

I walked down the stairs, the exhaustion hitting me too. A week ago, my life was nice and quiet.

It wasn’t now.