Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel (6 page)

He pulled her in by the waist and kissed her on the lips. Their softness responded to his touch. So did her hands. After a long moment, he pulled back from her.

“That’s a lot of meat, Faelon. Here, this is how I do this.” Michael took the carcass—careful of his shoulder, even though it seemed mostly healed—out the back door and slung it from a hook, the forty kilos of weight driving the curved steel up through the deer’s jaw. He took a knife from its spot on the wall and cut out the scent glands from the deer’s hindquarters. Then blooded it. He changed knives, and proceeded to skin the animal, the blood draining into a pit in the ground, there for just that reason, all the while telling Faelon why he did things. After twenty minutes, he had the hide free of the meat. He threw it over a frame for later.

Faelon picked up the utility knife.

“Faelon, that’s sharp.” 

“Cheese,
Michael.” She cut into the deer, slicing off a manageable piece. She handled the knife the same way one might a claw, as if it was instinctual.

“So you like my cooking.”
Michael grinned.

“Cheese.” She cut a smaller piece of meat and popped it into her mouth. She smiled back at him and then rubbed her shoulder against his.

“Smart ass.” He took the first piece of meat from her hands and then the knife. “We’ll leave this hang for a while. Not many animals come around here. The smoke from the fire keeps them away.” Michael knew she didn’t understand everything, but they also needed more references.

“PAC, how much did she learn
?”

“Three hundred new words relating to normal human relations.” 

Faelon wasn’t human. “Continue teaching Faelon. Use my voice and visual for demonstrations. She might respond better.”

“Very well.”

Faelon started. Her eyes narrowed at the image that appeared in the living area of the cabin. Her stance became aggressive. Hips up and shoulder level with the floor, one hand supporting her, she crouched trying to find a scent that went with Michael’s image. Then she was a wolf again, faster than Michael could comprehend. She circled the room, wary and uncertain. Her eyes darkening with fear, shifting between the two men in front of her.

“Grrr.”

Michael understood the tone in her growl, but the confused note of it twisted something inside him, left him feeling wrong, as if he’d hurt her on purpose.

“I’m sorry, Faelon. I
. . . ”

“Grrr.”

He walked through the image, waving his hands, then knelt beside her, touched her shoulder, and ran his fingers through her brindle-coloured fur. “PAC, play the first time sequence from when we entered the cabin.”

The hologram of
Michael handing Faelon food was before them. The words and sequence playing out as it had yesterday. “Food,” Michael’s image said.

“It’s for teaching you, Faelon. So we can talk to one another.” Faelon crept forward on her paws and sniffed at the image of herself.

“An image, only.” He stood and motioned Faelon over to the bathroom area. She came with him, her shoulder touching his thigh the entire way. As she trembled, that twisted feeling rose into his chest to sit there, as if he had swallowed a hummingbird.

“I need you to change
, Faelon. Please. Human.” Even through her fear, she understood. Her form shifted, brushing his side upwards until her shoulder pressed against his. He could feel a slight vibration in her muscles. Michael pointed to the image of the two of them in the mirror. He touched his chest, then Faelon’s shoulder. Faelon reached out and touched the cool surface of the mirror. The fear had turned her eyes the colour of pale golden wheat. “It’s like water. Here, your reflection.” He ran water into the dark sink and leaned over it. He motioned with his hands, drawing them over the surface of the water and then upwards, towards his face. Faelon watched him, and then eased over the water slowly pushing him away. She still trembled, but her actions were about understanding. He wondered if he would have been as brave in her situation. When she looked at him again, he could see the understanding in her face, the smile that brightened her eyes.

“Faelon.” She pointed to the mirror, then to the sink
, and finally to the hologram playing in the living area. “Michael. Not there.” She brushed her fingers over the smooth texture of the mirror, “Pond on wall,” she said.

“Right.” He cupped her cheek in his hand and leaned his forehead against hers. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He could feel his own muscles tremble as he touched her. “How did you come to mean this much to me?”

Faelon kissed him, as if she knew what he had just asked. She wrapped her arms around his neck and then buried her face into his shoulder and nuzzled at him. He felt as if her presence was melting into him, they stayed so still and silent with each other. When they broke apart, it wasn’t forced, but seemed as if in agreement. Faelon went and sat on the floor in the living room. “Not Michael, teach?”

“Yes, Faelon
, and I’ll cook.”

“Cheese,” she said.

He sighed.

“She’s smarter than you,” PAC said.

“Yes, but I have you to make up for it.”

While the deer was cooking, and
as he sliced up the vegetables, Michael started the story file that had been interrupted. PAC would know not to include the speech coming from Faelon as she learned. Already the machine had her moving through simple sentences, each one building intent, and context, for her to move through his world.

He fervently hoped that the simple, quick joy she had would stay with her through the process. If that was lost
. . . Michael knew then what had twisted in him earlier. It was his mind catching up to his heart, as he realized that he was in love.

Simply, and irrevocably.

Lost.

Chapter 10 Faelon

A whine escaped Faelon’s throat. Her bitch was lying on the ground, cold, the smell of death lingering over her. Decay and fecal matter. The faint smell of deer. Blood flowed from a wound in her chest. The edges of it were clean, unlike the ragged hole teeth or claws would make. Another wound mirrored the first, but it pierced her belly with a ragged hole, her entrails scattered on the ground. Her sire had his head buried in her fur. His pink skin was covered in dirt, his not-paws grasping at her pelt. When he lifted his eyes to Faelon, they were ringed with red and his breath came with a gasp as he tried to speak words at her. The second language he had taught her. After a few moments, he rested his cheek against his bitch’s shoulder again, the words disappearing and water coursing from his eyes. Deep heavy sobs racked his body.

Faelon whined again, unable to help herself.

Faelon stirred beside
Michael. He was hot. She kissed the wound on his shoulder and then spread some saliva over the area. He stirred but settled into place, once more peaceful. She touched his chest with her hand and felt the strong thick muscle that covered his ribs, his breathing deep and regular. She liked the slight covering of fur under her fingers. The many small scars she could see showed he fought. The large oval scar near his shoulder puzzled her for a moment and then the memory of what it was flooded back to her.

She looked for the
Michael that didn’t smell, but he had never appeared once after Michael had growled him out of the house. That was after he had finished cutting up the deer and putting it into the “stasis cooler.” Then he hung the fur of the deer and scraped away the residual meat, but he didn’t save that. He buried it and then cleaned all the blood away from the area. So much of the smell disappeared after his efforts that she could barely scent what had been there. None of the carrion animals that inhabited the forest would show. She approved of that behaviour. But much of what he did was incomprehensible—like why he growled to himself for hours on end. Or what he called chores: the need to scoop snow into a separate pond; the need for exercise, though that was almost a form of play so it was at least understandable; and the prey he called horses could feed themselves, but he didn’t let them.

And then they had “gone to bed,” and while he didn’t mate with her again, his limbs and breath were a comfort she hadn’t known before either. She felt safe in his arms.

Faelon padded over to the door, as silent as ever, so quiet that Michael wouldn’t be disturbed. She closed the door, not so much as to keep out the cold he hated, but to keep the wolf that had attacked them from getting in. Faelon wasn’t sure if it was dead, but she didn’t think so. She had tracked it while hunting the deer last night, but the trail had gone cold. The blood that would have made him easy to find had stopped flowing and the snow had disappeared off the wind-swept rocks above the valley. Except for an occasional spoor, the wolf was gone. Then she had lost his scent entirely in a small stream that bled through a stone.

Now she did what every animal would understand; she marked territory.
Michael didn’t keep a range like any other wolf. His domain was small in comparison, a short loping. Overlaying her scent with his, she was telling any other animals in the area: “This territory is ours. We are mated. Stay away or die.”

She knew when the wind shifted that it didn’t matter to some animals,
and one in particular. The scent she had been searching for was behind her. Back home. The black wolf had circled around behind her.

She ran.

Heard the bray of the horses long before the cabin came into view. The fast lope she had started with turned into a run, so fast that the splay of her paws didn’t keep her from sinking in the snow and she had to slow down. She struggled back up to the semi-hard pack of the snow and then, slowly, she increased her pace.

She
reached the top of the meadow and saw the pale light from the cabin pierce the night as the door opened up. Michael stood there. An object she didn’t know, in his hands—no, two objects. He growled into the night. More light spread over the snow. This moved as Michael did, showing him the way to the sound of the horses and another noise that ripped into the night, as if a tree was breaking in a storm.

Faelon intersected the black wolf’s tracks, turned, and followed them to the wall of wood that encircled the small cave. The “door” that had been there was ripped out, hanging from one corner with pieces of wood scattered over the terrain in front of the dark opening in the mountainside.
Michael’s footsteps followed the dark wolf into the blackness. The cave smelled of hay, feces, and blood. Of wolf, horses, and the musky scent of her mate.

Thunder filled the night. A bright flash, and a smell, like stone being crushed. Acrid and hot. It was familiar to her
, but she didn’t have time to think about it as a whine of pain seared the air. A yelp and a growl followed.

Michael.

She was through the door and into the cave, her eyes tracking movement and light. Michael holding a beam of sunlight and another object. The black wolf was rearing for a charge, blood flowing from a wound in his side. And the prey animals. One was dead, with its blood scent thick in the air. The other was wounded, its hooves stamping into the earth with a vibration she could feel through her paws.

The object in
Michael’s hand flashed again, and a roar filled the small cave. The wolf leapt. Faelon charged forward and met the wolf in mid-leap driving him to the ground. Her teeth sunk into his shoulder. The black wolf twisted, ignoring the sound of its tearing flesh and clamped his teeth onto her throat. His low growl rumbled through her chest.

Faelon used her claws, tore at the intruder, shifted the grip of her teeth, and clamped down on a foreleg. She heard the bone snap and another cry of pain, releasing her throat from his grasp. He staggered as his weight shifted, unable to stand on that side. He fell. Another burst of fire left
Michael’s hand, the flash blinding in the confines of the cave. The black wolf lurched, and then lunged at Faelon. They rolled together, a savage fury of claws and teeth, and then the black wolf pulled away, running for the door. Another flash and bellow filled the cave. The horse reared, its breath heavy. The ground vibrated again with the statacco beat of hooves.

Faelon slumped to the ground. Blood flowed from the wound in her neck and shoulders. A low whine came from her throat as she looked at
Michael.

She felt his hands. They ran through her fur, touched the edges of each wound, lingered a moment with the small pain that caused, and then moved on, gentle, but insistent about examining her.

But she knew Michael was safe. A sigh escaped her lips.

Chapter 11 Michael

Once again, the kitchen was covered in important papers. This time they were the application forms for the army. Michael Scott looked at his father. Their eyes locked and the pain they shared, had shared for so many years, was once again between them.

“Is this what you want?” Robert Scott's eyes looked older than the rest of his face, tired and red from long hours over the organic computer he’d invented.

“You can’t do any more for me, Dad.”

“Well, maybe. It’s the creation engine that keeps me stumped.”

“I doubt an IED will ever get me, not with the training you’ve given me.”

“No, but there are snipers and aerial attacks, any number of things.”

“No one’s ever truly safe, Dad.”

The moonlight shimmered over the landscape like silver escaping a forge. Dawn would turn the snow into molten gold soon.

It was cold. Freezing without the shirt he had packed into Faelon’s wounds.
Michael carried her to the cabin. For all the weight of her body, she felt too light. Her head lolled at an angle that seemed disjointed, as if her spine had been severed. Or, as if she had no life left in her wolfen body.

But her spine was intact, and her heart beat in her chest, though it seemed weak to him. He thought that was
just because of the way his hands shook as he had tried to sense her pulse and feel her heartbeat, the task made all the more difficult for the thick fur that covered her body. It was like trying to feel an elevator’s vibration in an earthquake.

He brushed the door open with his shoulder. In his haste to save the horses he had left it open. A few quick steps
, and he laid Faelon gently on the bed.

“PAC. Proximity Mode. Medical.”
Michael pulled the Nano-tech that was less a machine and more a personal bodyguard from his desk, from where it had been teaching Faelon. “Monitor Faelon. Administer any drugs needed.” He slipped the tech around her foreleg. It shrank into place. He knew the touch would also complete the Home Advantage command he had introduced earlier.

PAC fed Nano-filaments into her body. “Monitoring. Medical Mode. Pulse weakened, heartbeat steady. Her cell structure is showing the same signs as her saliva but at a greatly increased rate. Recommend you remove the wadding from her wounds before her flesh grows into place around it.”

His shirt?

Michael pulled at the cloth gently. His face contorted as the material slowly lifted up, taking tissue and hair with it. A low whine echoed from Faelon’s throat.

“I’m sorry
, Faelon.”

The blood flow had slowed though. What should have been great pools of liquid in the wound from
the severed veins now looked like raw meat. Even as he watched, in horror and fascination, an artery repaired itself.

“Jesus, fuck. Is there anything you can give her
, PAC?”

“Nothing for pain. That would only change her nerve response. She is healing. She just needs to stay alive long enough.”

“Then monitor her, and if she needs it . . . maybe a sucrose derivative.” Michael knew the engine that powered PAC could create a process for the sucrose drip. Or most any chemical compound.

“That would be safe.”

“What about adrenaline?”

“I don’t know. She is unlike
. . .”

“
What?”

“There are differences in her physiology.”

“Of course.” Michael laid a hand on her chest, the gaping wound at her throat still raw. He could feel the vibration of her heart against the palm of his hand. It was fast, forcing her metabolic rate. Faelon’s breath was laboured. He noticed his own breathing syncing into the same rhythm. He forced air deep into his lungs. And another. In response to his concentration, her own breath slowed, eased into a more peaceful state. Some of her minor scratches were already healed, the pink skin of scar tissue peeking through her fur.

Michael
walked back to the door, and, after searching the dawn, closed it behind him. Then he pulled his pistol and checked the magazine. He replaced the four shots that had been spent into the black wolf, glad for the routine to take his mind off Faelon’s injuries.

“PAC, I need to take care of the horses. Is Faelon safe?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Call me if
. . .”

“I understand.”

Michael felt useless. He threw a coat on, and walked outside, making sure the door was closed again. Not that it would do any good, other than act as a warning, considering what the creature had done to the cave door. Walking back to the stable, he kept looking over his shoulder as if Faelon would suddenly appear.

Or the other wolf.

It should have been dead from the knife in its chest. To Michael, that meant only one thing. Faelon wasn’t alone in the world. Was it a mate? Did it think that it was? Is that why it had only attacked Faelon in defence and then run from her tonight?

If so, o
bviously Faelon didn’t feel the same way.

His breath
turned to mist, as quiet as the mountains around him. The late night moon lit his way to the stable. The door was in ruin. Ripped apart as if it were balsa wood.

Faelon had been able to hold him still when she had wanted to heal his cuts. How much strength did she have? Or the black wolf? Enough, that was sure.
Faelon didn’t fit the myths and legends he knew. She was a wolf that became human. So many were the other way around. And the creature was always evil. She was savage enough, but her motivations, her behaviours, they weren’t evil.

Nothing about her was.

The other wolf, though, he had lain in wait for them, watching day-old tracks to spring an ambush. That in itself could be the cunning attributed to wolves. He knew they would split prey off from a herd and attack them, with several pack members waiting downwind. But the stable attack seemed like more. The concept of the wolf trapping him, or isolating him even more than he was seemed almost human by comparison. Rage or jealousy would have made good motivation for the behaviours he was seeing. And it was all done when Faelon wasn’t around. The horses were his only link to the outside world. A forty-klick hike to civilization through the Valley to Banff was just the start. 

Michael
was starting to feel singled out.

The crisp scent of hay buried under blood and feces assaulted his nostrils. The heavy breath of his surviving horse was clearly audible as he stepped past the shattered wood of the door and under the soft organic LED
s lighting the cave. The hay and dirt of the floor squished under his shoes. With all that blood.

In the back of the cave, the wood of the stalls was a dark brown in contrast to the gr
ey of the stone surrounding it. The horse’s skin shivered under the light. Its muscles twitched at his presence, its eyes wide, staring at him. Claw marks showed dark and fierce against Chaka’s pale hide. Blood flowed down its neck, soaking into the earth. The animal stomped its hooves. 

“Easy girl. Shhhh,”
Michael said. Even though gun trained, the horse was skittish.

Michael
felt a pang of guilt low in his belly. He was supposed to protect these animals; they weren’t friends, but he understood them, cared for them in ways that went beyond any kind of pet-human relationship. His horses were an extension of the survival they met together, here in the Rockies. They needed each other. Depended on the other for so much more than just companionship.

He took a kit bag from the wall,
some bandages and ointments, and then walked slowly forwards, talking all the way. It wasn’t the words that were important, it was the tone of voice he used. Soothing calm that flowed from him to his riding horse. It took a long time for peace to settle into place in the confines of the cave. At least it felt that way. When he opened the stall gate, his horse shied away.

“Easy. It’s okay.”

Finally, Chaka let him touch her throat, and run a hand over her hide to find the damage the wolf had left. Besides the bite on the neck, there were claw marks high up on both flanks and shoulders. The horse had bucked the wolf off. Michael had been far enough into the cave to put the first shot into the wolf’s side when it landed. And then Faelon had attacked.

Michael
took a med dispenser from the kit and filled it with painkillers from a Sealpak. The soft hiss of air almost startled the animal again, but the lessening of pain it had been feeling was soothing. Michael moved the local anesthesia to the area around the other wounds. Chaka barely noticed the hiss. Next, he took an antiseptic and cloth and cleaned the wounds. He took his time, again, glad he could do something other than be anxious. He didn’t bother to look behind, knowing Chaka was a better alarm than any other right now. But he wanted to look, to see Faelon standing there, alive.

“All better
, girl.” He scratched her behind the ears and gave her some feed and water to help with her strength. Then he sat down, his feet under him in case he had to move fast, and his back against the cave wall where the earth rose up and the blood wouldn’t soak into his pants.

He let himself relax, let the fear and anxiety drain out of his body. He undid his jacket letting the cool air in the cave wash over him. With the hay and the horses, it was warmer in here than outside. The sun was just rising now. The
pain from his shoulder wound had receded; now it was just an ache and the scab had pulled tight with all the exertion of the evening. It was shrinking still, too. One day, to heal a wound that would take three days under the best of circumstances even with PAC’s sources. And barely a fever to go with it.

Of course, without Faelon, none of this would have happened.

And he’d be dead.

He felt the tears wash down his cheeks a few minutes later. He let them run, not rubbing the salt
water away as most would. His father had taught him there were better ways to deal with emotions than locking them down. The army was different, but too much had happened in the last few days not to release his emotions. Too many deaths, too many accidents.

“
Michael, sad. For prey?” Faelon said.

She was human agai
n. Easing down beside him she took in his scent, as he raised his left knee so she could lean against him. He wasn’t disappointed when she did, as if reading his mind. His knee tucked under her arm, she held his thigh, her long fingers resting lightly. Her neck wound was gone, the savage rip healed as easily as his scratches. The flesh already grown over healed muscle. PAC was still wrapped around her arm. Once she was comfortable, it flowed from her limb down to his thigh. Michael put his hand in the way and PAC slid into place on his arm.

“There’s more to life than prey and predators. There’s the living.”

“Prey is food, Michael.”

“What did you do, PAC?”
He stared at Faelon’s eyes. They were a golden amber right now, the same colour as the dawn shifting over the snow outside.

“You gave me Home Advantage coding for her.”

“Induction training, PAC?”

“A small amount.”

Michael relaxed, letting the worry ease out of him. “I’m glad you’re alive, Faelon. I would miss you if you were gone.”

“Three suns is a life.” She stroked her fingers over his thigh.

“Every moment seems a life with you.”

“Sad for prey,
Michael.”

“Horse is not prey, she is a way home,”
Michael said.

“Here is home,” Faelon said.

Michael leaned forward and kissed his mate. She responded with all the passion he had become used to. His fingers brushed through her hair, as soft as fur. “I have two homes, love.”

“Two? You have mate, and PAC is cub.”

“No cubs. I’ve never married. And PAC is complicated.”

“What means married?” Faelon said.

“She would know what that means in relation to being a wolf,” PAC said.

“I’ve never had a mate. Before now.” He found her eyes, again. Their
colour had changed, and now they were like burnt amber. He touched her face. She pushed her cheek into his hand.

“
Michael is mate,” Faelon said. The surety in her voice told him all he needed to know.

“Yes. Faelon is my mate. You’ve saved my life three times in as many days. When I was in the military
. . .” he saw her brow crinkle. “ . . . when I was guard for my pack, that kind of loyalty was treasured, needed even. But you, I love.”

She nuzzled into his neck and shoulder, squirmed as close as possible, her arms wrapping around him. “Faelon loves
Michael.”

“What about the black wolf?”

“Naklétso want mate. Faelon not choose. Left black wolf dead, many suns ago.”

Michael
’s brow furrowed. “He’s not dead. Doesn’t even seem able to die. Like you.”

“Why,
Michael.”

“You’re asking me?”

“Yes, mate.”

He looked out the opening of the cave. Sunlight would soon fill the front half, a glaring contrast to the soft hue of the O.L.E.D
.s. The morning was fast disappearing. Faelon touched his brow, ran her fingers through the furrow there.