Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel (18 page)

She sat astride him
, and with both hands clasped together drove her double fist into his chest. It crunched under her hands. Zachery Kerrigan slipped into unconsciousness.

Samantha waited. 

And Sammy receded from under her clothing to become a charm bracelet again.

Her breath heaved, and her thighs tightened around his hips. Her nipples
had stayed erect, wrinkling the cotton of her dress blouse. Her jacket had slipped over her shoulder, the buttons undone and showing cleavage. The man she wanted to notice it, to notice her, was just coming around, and while still semi-conscious, he was reacting to her scent, to the lust that their dominance game had only intensified. She raised her uniform dress skirt, put her hands between her legs and taking hold of each side of his jeans at the snap, pulled. She drew forward, over Lieutenant Kerrigan; she brushed her cheek against his, breathed over his ear while her hand found his erection and slid it between her legs. The sigh she released was enough to rouse the man under her. She put her hands to his shoulders and then gently caressed the already healing break in his ribs, then his jaw, never letting her eyes fall from the brilliant blue of his.

He blinked, all too aware of what was happening and knowing it wasn’t at his instigation.

“General.”

She smiled at that. “Yes, Mr. Kerrigan.”

“It’s Lieutenant, General.” He looked at her, confused by the conversation, wanting the control back that said they were ranked officers with boundaries. That confusion, his need for stability, warred with the pleasure that was coursing through him. His hips had started to move of their own accord, matching the rhythm that Samantha held over him.

“No longer, Mr. Zachery Kerrigan. I need a partner more than a man I’m paying.”

“Throwing a man at a wolf is a strange test for partnership.”

Samantha stilled, her breath, her hips
—she wanted him to understand. “Michael Scott is like me, Zach.”

His hands moved up her arms, and then, tentatively, over the buttons of her dress blouse and her supple breasts, her nipples hardening even more under his fingers.
“You mean enhanced.”

“Yes. Mr. Kerrigan.” Her voice had taken on a husky tone, her breath returning with force, hot as steam as she spoke.

“So this is . . . .”

“I want you to survive, Zach.”

“You want a sparring buddy you can sexually assault?” What did she mean survive? How long did she expect to live? Or was it something else. She’d always shown boundaries before. What had changed? He wasn't sure he liked what that meant. She wasn’t any different than she had ever been.

That meant he had. How? What did she know
?

Samantha Ariyan laughed. For the first time it seemed, since her son had died. She pulled Kerrigan in closer, crushing her breasts to him, making her nipples ache against his hard chest.

Zach kissed her, gently, unable to resist her presence, forgetting his questions, driving his hips into her, faster and faster. She reacted, kissing him with a fierceness he had fantasies about all too often. The scent of her perfume, cherries and vanilla, pulled at his senses. She moved faster against him, curved under his hands as they traced the fine line of her muscles, the hard edge of her ribs. They fell into a rhythm, ignored everything, moving together until their orgasms rushed over them.

“Damn,” said Zach.

“No, Zach, not a fuck buddy.” Samantha said, answering his last question. “I just needed . . . you.” Samantha pulled him closer, unable to voice the emotion trapped behind her lips.

He would know how she felt, with his new senses
. He had to, he just had to.

Chapter 34 Hillman

Gerund
’s first act as a director of Blackwater was to initiate protocols for the gene therapy drug he had used to entice Blackwater to hire him. An internal delivery system for each soldier willing to test it. It had some interesting effects. One of which made the mercenaries of Blackwater more valuable.

And Gerund.

Gerund Hillman studied his new P.A.C. unit. The one he had captured from Michael Scott. If he could devise how it had changed form and incorporate that into the business unit he had now, the one strapped to his wrist, the power structure would alter. Again. Not only in military circles—if the P.A.C. unit could do what he surmised, what he could see from this woman, this machine in front of him—Gerund smiled, a thin merciless thing.

After he
had introduced himself, he started asking questions. “What does Michael call you?”

Faelon paced the cage she was in, a small cave, made of
—not-cub had called it metal, she thought this was the one called steel. Long sticks of the stuff covered one wall, from floor to roof. The man who had introduced himself as Gerund Hillman stood just past her reach. Move closer, please.

She saw no harm in giving her name, but refused to cooperate with this tiny man who thought he was an alpha. She growled at him.

“I’d have thought he would have programmed more English into you.”

What is he talking about? Faelon stared at his eyes; he looked away after a few seconds
, his feet shifting. His hands hiding in his fur, his clothes.

She’d had guards before this. Two men who
had thought themselves brave, until someone told them of her, a voice from out of the wall above their heads. After that, she could smell their fear and disbelief. They kept looking her way, the whites in their eyes growing wide whenever they did. And then this man had shown up, he wore different furs than all the others, and he smelled like rancid water trapped away in the hills. He had started talking to her, long enough for her to hunt down a rabbit if she’d been free. He wanted Michael’s friend, and Faelon’s teacher, for some reason. She thought he meant . . . no, that couldn’t be. Not-cub was his own.

“
Food . . .” Faelon paused, “And water. I talk, then.”

He spoke to his own not-cub, worn on his wrist; she hadn’t seen it shift form like PAC could.

“Jacob, get it some food down here.”

“How much?”

“How the fuck do I know? Do an analysis of its metabolism, and extrapolate from that. And hurry up. I want answers.”

She knew Michael would never approve of the way
the man talked to his own not-cub. As if it would never learn. Ever. She hugged herself close, drawing Michael’s scent from the clothes she wore with every breath, taking strength from her thoughts and memories of him, of PAC, and from the changes in her body. She would survive; she had to. For all of them.

She ignored the not-alpha’s stare from the parts of her that had to do with mating and feeding cubs. Something he had been doing since he walked into the room. His desire rampant on the air. His look reminded her of the black wolf, last summer, when he had wanted to mate with her. She had driven him off, left him for dead, but something in her bite
had made him stronger than death. Faelon would not bite this man like that. He could stay weak when she left this cage with Michael. She paced her narrow confines and stayed away from the human, but occasionally he would shift position to watch her and then she could smell him again, and a growl would rise instinctively in her throat.

Her nose lifted in the air and her ears flared up
: food.

Gerund noticed her alertness. “What?” Then footsteps sounded on the concrete, and a door banged open. The little man jumped.

“What the hell? There’s enough to feed . . .”

“She has a very fast metabolism, Gerund
. She is unlike . . .”

“Shut up, Jacob. You
, soldier, give her the food, and get out of here.”

“Sir.”

Faelon could smell the guard’s emotion; she just wasn’t sure what it was, though she knew it was a form of dislike.

How did the little man stay alpha?

The guard crouched down and slipped the food under the sticks of the wall that would let the food through. She had never smelled him before this. He wasn’t from the machine that moved in the air—she searched her memory and PAC’s teachings—“helicopter” came to mind. Not-cub had told her she needed to use the words to make them part of her knowledge. Told her that the more she used them the more her awareness would branch out.

She needed this, she knew, for Michael.

“Thank you, for the food.” The guard’s eyes widened in surprise. “For your kindness. When Michael is here, I’ll spare your life.” She smiled at him. He dropped the food, the metal shelf it was on clattering. She pulled it forward, well away from the bars of her cage and started to eat. He left.

Gerund stared as the P.A.C. unit ignored the utensils and ate with its hands, as an animal might. How could a military tech unit be so
. . . feral?

“What are you?”

“I am . . .” She gulped down the meat in her hands. “ . . . me.”

“Jacob, play the wav file from the woods just outside of Michael’s cabin.”

The forest appeared in the area between her cage and the human. Faelon knew now that these were just images and they could not hurt her, like she had first thought when Michael had shown her the same thing. She watched with interest, not-cub had taught her many things this way. Perhaps she could learn more about her enemy.

She saw her and Michael appear
. He was running in the hard-packed snow trail he had made for exercise. She knew this teaching. This was where she had attacked the black wolf, to save Michael. Where she had learned how to change from human to wolf, again.

“How did you do this?”

“Do this?” Faelon cocked her head over to one side.

“Change into a wolf.”

“Can’t you?”

“No one can. Jacob, bring up the media file from three years ago.”

Another teaching image appeared. Michael was in it, and three others. She couldn’t see his face, something covered it, but she knew from his body movements that it was Michael. It wasn’t the forest this time, or a place she had ever seen. It was all rock and stone with small shrubs dotting the landscape. None that she recognized from her home.

Michael was holding one of the men. One of Michael’s pack, she could tell that from his body language. Water leaked from his eyes. The clothes that
the man wore were damaged, and his blood soaked into the landscape. Michael was red with it.

“You’re not a wolf here.” He pointed to the place on Michael’s arm where not-cub, PAC, often rested.

Faelon didn’t understand at first why the not-alpha thought that. How could she be here and there? Then she understood. Gerund Hillman thought she was PAC.

“No, I’m not.” Faelon smiled and sat back on her haunches.

His eyes followed to where the “shirt” flowed around her legs. Michael had looked at her with interest—this man stared. Hungry. His eyes gleamed as if he hunted in darkness. His eyes moved up her body. She felt the need to cover herself, for the first time. She had never felt that way with Michael. This man made her feel as if she should hide from the sun.

“What is wrong with your PAC?” Faelon stood up with an easy fluid grace. From the look in Gerund’s eyes, it surprised him as much as it had Michael. Unlike her mate, though, this man just looked hungrier for it.

“Nothing.”

“Can it be a wolf?”

“No.” Hillman shifted his stance.

“Can it fight?”

“No, nor can it protect, or detect poison like you did.” His weight moved back.

“Then it is broken, like you.”

“Jacob, activate the power system.”

Faelon screamed. Her muscles went tense, her jaw locked down, and her teeth pierced her tongue. She fell forward, against the bars that held her from killing Gerund Hillman. She slid down, her weight carrying her to the ground. Blood dripped on the floor, a drop, then more.

“Enough.”

The pain stopped. Faelon ached, her body feeling as if it had been cut in a thousand different places. She needed to heal. She needed
. . .

Her flesh changed. Brindle
-coloured fur covered her body. The shirt she was wearing split into rags. A growl erupted from her throat.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Faelon found her paws, stepping backwards in her cage to get as far as she could from the beast that had just injured her. Her haunches touched the bed. She turned and jumped up on the mattress, off the floor that had caused her so much pain.

She glared at the not-alpha, the rumble in her chest echoing in the tiny room, smaller now than it had been. Her eyes flared the red
-gold of liquid fire.

Gerund Hillman stepped backwards. She could smell his fear. That was good.

Prey should show fear.

It made the flesh sweeter.

Chapter 35 White Bear Dying

White Bear Dying watched his son play amidst the rock and sand of the mesa. The Witchery Way demanded a life, to become
‘Ant’jjhnii. A witch. To be Yeenaaldlooshii. Grandfather had taught him the curses and the healings, the secrets for knowledge’s sake, so their heritage wouldn’t be lost. But it called to him, talked to him. White Bear knew the taboos, he heard the others talk of the Way and how it was no longer needed. But it had been invented by the First Man and Woman. The knowledge was being lost—but the price.

Still, he heard the Yeii. The Holy Spirits called to him.

He laid out the items he had brought: a bowl of ash for the sand painting, three colours of fine sand, the hide of a wolf, his favourite T-shirt. The one with the wolf spirit printed on the front. And mixing implements, old fashioned, a mortise and pestle.

The cave behind him took the wind and changed it to a low howl that filled the air. The wolf fur in front of him seemed to move in the breeze. He studied the song in his mind, the chants that would unlock the power he sought.

He took a deep breath.

The wind was cold on White Bear’s neck as he left Choosh'gai, his home. His head still ached and every step of his horse made the pain a little more jagged. The fierce wind that rifled down the pass that held his home was not making it feel any better. The sacred coffee would have healed some of the pain
, but he couldn’t use that today. He needed his system clear to hunt the Skinwalkers he had unleashed on the world. He’d been weak when he left one in the land and that had come back to haunt him in a very real way. The price was too great. The Yeii would have to find another to talk with. For his tribe and his family, the Witchery Way was dead. The poison would die with him.

He followed Michael Scott’s tracks. He was a half day behind him. Michael had taken no action to hide where he was going. He was hunting his mate. The brindle
-coated wolf that was the offspring of Simon Werheald. White Bear never would have thought it possible for the Yeenaaldlooshii to mate with their counterpart animal. Even watching the family of wolves, he hadn’t understood the truth. Their differences should have driven them apart. Strangers to a community are never accepted.

He came to the rocks that marked the fall of Michael Scott to the cursed wolf. This time he looked at the area more closely. The details that Michael had let slip, that another wolf had caused the damage, these things White Bear had ignored because he believed himself to be right.

He looked at the blood. The other pool of liquid that crossed where Michael had fallen, the tracks of modern boots, and both sets of wolf tracks, and the bare feet that surrounded the area, showed two distinct regions that had been examined. The imprint of an animal body had lain in the snow and there were clear indicators that it had been carried away.

He was a fool.

But what made them take the body of the black wolf away. Why? Why had it attacked Michael? The wolf that White Bear had driven away was female. Both those wolves were larger than they had any right to be. Could it be as simple as that? Mating within the pack, and the ascendancy of the alpha male. What was Michael then? Or had the black wolf once been normal and tried to mate with the brindle-coated wolf.

Damn. Would a bite do that? It had for Michael, or would have if not for the bark that had covered his hand, ruining the transformation.

If he didn’t do something soon, he would have more Skinwalkers in the world than there had any right to be. But these Skinwalkers could be human at any time and that was the evil he had to guard against. It was his fault. He had to find a way to fix this epidemic.

With that in mind he collected the blood from both pools, making sure to keep them separate from each other. He isolated them in two small earthenware jars he kept with him, part of the ritual tools that let him curse his enemies.

There were three Yeenaaldlooshii, one he had let slip free. One he had refused to believe, and one he had thought was from the wilds. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He was sure that if he could bring the two males to him, the female would follow.

He would curse them both. She would follow her mate into hell.

That left one to kill.

He could do that.