Treasure

Rori showered and changed into jean shorts and a Steel Ladies T-shirt, thankful that the Club had a bunch of logo clothing available for sale. Looking at the clock in by the bed, it was 5:35, almost time to go. She ran a brush through her red hair, making sure the curls weren’t tangled. She looked good, she thought as she looked at herself.

Rori felt great, but she needed to stay on her meds so she didn’t have more blackouts. She swallowed her pill, noting there were only a dozen or so left. That was one thing she hadn’t thought of when she went on the run. She sent a text to Mongo, asking how she could get refills on her meds. It didn’t take long before her replied. “I’ll mail them to Bear,” he said.

She put the phone in her pocket and headed out into the hallway. The main Club area was packed, there was nothing like Church to bring in all the members. Since it was so early, most of the men had brought their old ladies, girlfriends or their children. The place quieted as she walked in, and more than a few people looked her way before realizing she was too young to be a hangaround. Howler waved her over to a table where a bunch of middle-aged biker chicks were hanging out. “Hey girl, are you settled in?”

“Yes, even got a workout in,” she said as she was pulled down to a chair and introduced. A prospect came over and took her order, steak and mashed potatoes, and he brought her a Coke. The ladies of the club welcomed her, telling stories and laughing as she met more people than she could hope to remember. Luckily, most of them wore leather cuts with the Steel Ladies patch and their road names on the breast, along with who their Old Man was.

Her food arrived just as the last of the patched members disappeared upstairs, leaving only the prospects and the hangarounds. One of the prospects, who looked like he was just out of high school, put on his best smile and walked over to her. “Hi, I’m James, welcome to the club.”

“Hi James, I’m sixteen and Bear will break you in half if you try anything,” she said with a smile. His face quickly turned from seduction to fear. “I’m Rori,” she said as she stuck her hand out.

He shook it nervously as he saw the faces of the Ladies at the table. “If you need anything, just let me know,” he said as he fled back towards the bar.

“Don’t worry, Bear is laying down the law in there,” Howler said. “None of them will touch you.”

“I don’t know, some of them are kind of cute,” she teased. “I might not mind being asked out.”

“Well, that would be gutsy of them,” she said. “You’re under Bear’s protection, he’s claiming you in there like a daughter, which means the guy would need his permission first. I don’t imagine that will be easy or painless.”

“I’ve never been on a date, I’ve never even held hands or kissed a guy,” Rori said quietly. The girls looked shocked. “Before I moved to Florida, I wasn’t liked. I’d been kicked out of school, people hated me, they didn’t want anything to do with me. I got my degree online, graduating at sixteen because I literally had nothing else in my life except school, art and running.”

“That’s horrible, honey,” Howler said. She put her hand on Rori’s hands, squeezing gently. “You’ll make friends, you’re young and beautiful and have a gentle spirit.”

She snorted. “Gentle isn’t something I’m used to being called,” she said. “I used to wonder what it would be like. I didn’t trust myself, and nobody would trust me.”

“What did you do?”

“A senior started bullying me, and I felt a pain in my head and heard a voice telling me to teach her respect. I don’t know anything else, I blacked out. When I woke, I found out I hurt her, hurt her really bad and people were looking at me like I was the monster.” She caught her breath. “They were right. I got expelled and spent months in the mental ward.” She looked up, then back to her hands when she saw the pity in their eyes. “I still get attacks, I had one before I came here.”

“What can we do, baby?”

“Just stay away from me if I start getting the headaches. I don’t want anyone getting hurt. Not again.” She looked at the stairway. “In my whole life, I’ve only had one friend who stood with me, and I left her behind when we entered victim protection. Now I find out my best friend in Florida was working with the same people who tried to kidnap me for a third time.”

“You’ve got friends here, and friends back at the Brotherhood chapter in Orlando, right?” She nodded. “Things will get better. Somewhere out there is a man who will win your heart, a man who will treat you right and love you for who you are. A man that will be at your side and make you feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”

“Someone who will make me howl?”

“Damn right, kid.” The whole table busted up laughing, just as the door opened upstairs and the men started down. “Don’t settle for someone who can’t make you forget your own name.”

Bear came over and kissed her, and Rori looked at them with a sense of longing. She hoped she was right, that she could find someone who wouldn’t be scared to love the crazy girl.

She left the party about one, going out to the garage when things got a little too rowdy. She went out the back, wandering back to a picnic table by the storage shed, taking advantage of a little time alone. She felt the pressure in her head, but she was too tired to fight it. Without the fight, she didn’t get the debilitating pain. “Go back to them,” the voice said.

“I want to go to bed.”

“Not inside, go back where we were. We belong there.”

“I don’t trust them, and I’m never seeing them again.” Tired of the talk, she started to push the voice back and closed her eyes as the pain built.

“You should.” That was all she remembered.

She woke up shivering, the twigs and rocks in the ground under the evergreen shrub poking into her side. She looked around, knowing it had happened again. She had blacked out and lost a whole night.

She moved out from under the branches that hid her, standing naked along the side of the garage. She looked over to the picnic table, her clothes were on the ground underneath. She pulled on her underwear and the long T-shirt quickly, hoping no one was awake to see her. The shorts were ripped, so she used that to clean the blood off her hands and arms. She wiped a clean hand on her face and came up with blood, so she wiped her face too. Sneaking into the clubhouse, she went up the steps and pulled the key out of her pocket.

She looked in the mirror and saw the blood on her face. Undressing and throwing the bloody clothes into the trash, she jumped in the shower and scrubbed herself clean, then fell into bed. She didn’t wake until the late afternoon.

By then, everyone was tired of talking about the wolf howl that woke them up in the middle of the night. It was the saddest howl they had ever heard, and no other wolf responded.

A week later, there was still no sign of her, whether you looked for Charlotte, Rori or Treasure. Martin and Charles had been summoned to Missoula to face the whole Council, and it wasn’t going to be a fun trip. They gathered their luggage and walked to the waiting car. “Welcome to Montana,” the Omega said as she opened the trunk for them.

“Thank you,” he said. The ride in was quiet, giving them plenty of time to think about how badly they had screwed everything up. Not only did they not find her, but men had come to her Florida condo and disabled all the bugs and tracking devices they had planted. The cameras they set up had been removed, and three huge guys had shown up at their condo and “recommended strongly” that they leave the two women alone and leave town. The police wouldn’t help, the missing person file was closed, and people were asking questions in town about their compound.

The only good thing was that Rori hadn’t gone to reporters claiming they were werewolves.

The car stopped in front of the Pack House. “I’ll have your bags delivered to your room,” she told them as she opened the door.

They stepped out, the Council Chairman was waiting for them. “Good flight, Alphas?”

“Yes, thank you sir for sending the plane.”

“The Council is waiting, follow me.” They walked into the big Pack House, taking the stairway to the top floor and the Chair’s conference room. The men inside stood as he walked in; pointing to some empty chairs for the two, he walked to the head of the table and sat down. Everyone sat, and he began. “Introductions first,” he said. “Gentlemen, may I introduce Alpha Martin King and former Alpha Charles King of the Adirondack Pack. You know the Council, but we’ve also asked some of the staff here to attend. On this end is our Pack Doctor, Doctor Phillips, and our head Warrior, Beta Rob Carlson. I’ve also asked two of our Council Lawyers, Mark Restwell and Vernon Kemp.”

“Thank you for the invitation,” Martin said as he looked around.

“Let’s cut the bullshit and talk honestly here,” Councilman Forrest said. “This situation is more fucked up than a football bat.”

“No kidding,” Councilman Waterman agreed. “You’ve had her under surveillance since January, you even had a Pack member befriend her enough to come visit your Pack lands. Then, in a span of less than a day, you freak her out, force her shift, let her escape AND let her human side see wolves shift. Her mother and grandmother, both human, know you were watching them, and the Princess has disappeared. That pretty much covers it?”

“Yes sir, it does,” Martin said. “We will find her again, and this time we will have a better plan to explain to her what she is and bring her in.”

“No, you won’t,” Chairman Gruber said. “The Council is taking over the search for and apprehension of Rori King, effective immediately.”

“SHE’S MY GRANDDAUGHTER,” Charlie said as he jumped to his feet.

The Chairman stared him down, his dominance forward, until he sat in his chair again. “Alpha King, I suggest you control your Pack member before he gets thrown out of here.”

“Yes sir,” Martin said. He was shaking and fighting back his own emotions, the news was a slap in the face to his leadership. “May I ask why?”

“This is bigger than your family, Alpha. Doctor Phillips?”

“From what we know of her and what you reported from the short time with your Pack, her wolf is completely disconnected from her human side,” he said. “Her wolf has been suppressed for years using drug therapies meant for people with serious disorders, and the long-term effects of this are unknown. We fear her wolf has no control, that she may be feral and unstable.”

“Her wolf was happy, loving, thrilled to be with us at my Pack,” Martin said. “She wanted to be with us. Let us return her to the Pack and help her adjust, we were so close.”

“She is somewhere out there, scared and alone, and her wolf has been violent and unpredictable,” Councilman Forrest said. “The wolf and the human fight for dominance, and what if she can’t control when she shifts? All it takes is ONE shift caught on tape, and our secret is out. And what if she bites someone? She could doom them to a painful death and wake up not knowing how she did it!” His concern was warranted, a werewolf’s bite was a deadly poison for humans, killing them within an hour.

“Even without it, she saw your men change. She could talk about it, bring unwanted attention to your Pack, maybe the police or the press,” Councilman Waterman said.

“Councilman Forrest will be heading up the search. All North American Alphas will be instructed to cooperate, and Beta Carlson will have the responsibility to apprehend her if off Pack lands. If she is found on Pack Land, of course, that Alpha will be required to take her into custody.”

“And then what,” Alpha Martin said.

“She will be brought here,” the Chairman said, “where she will be treated and evaluated. If the Doctor can help her reconnect with her wolf, she will be trained properly and returned to your Pack, if that is what she desires.”

“And if she cannot reconnect?” Charles looked at them in fear.

“Then she will never leave.”