Thomas' Heart

Note to the reader: Werewolves can communicate with each other via their minds. Due to limitations of HiNovel at the time of uploading this book, these mental conversations are not designated by italics as they typically would be. However, this should not negatively impact your reading experience, so long as you're aware of how they can communicate. Thank you for your understanding!

Present…

“Keep them safe, Mary.”

Through our link, I felt the tug of Charlene’s fear and automatically sent my love back. She’d been withdrawing so much since leaving home. Some of it I could attribute to her fear of returning to the world she’d left long ago. But I knew her well enough to see there was more troubling her. I also knew she’d tell me when she was ready.

“I will,” Mary said, reaching out to squeeze Charlene’s hand. “After years of keeping Jim safe, these two will be a breeze.”

Charlene laughed, and I looked over at Jim. He was playing with Michelle’s brothers, the little ones who’d completely won over Charlene. Me too. Emmitt stood by his Mate, grinning as he watched Jim. Overwhelming pride filled me. My sons had their own family now. Emmitt’s cubs had gone through so much and needed safety and stability, like another cub I once knew. I glanced at Carlos who stood quietly beside Grey. Even after all these years that boy still carried the weight of his past.

Luke and Bethi entered the lobby, drawing my attention. Before their scents even reached me, I knew they’d completed the bond. They moved as if one person, aware of the other even as they separated. Another Mated pair. A thread of satisfaction drifted over our link, and I knew Charlene sensed them, too. Not many understood how much value each Mating held for our kind, though Bethi might.

That girl knew things about us we hadn’t even known. I hoped the mating would put both Luke and Bethi at ease now.

Luke caught my eye and nodded toward the lobby doors. Even from across the room with conversation flowing, I heard him just fine when he asked me to meet him outside.

I moved toward the exit, and he followed.

“Congratulations,” I said as soon as the doors closed.

“Thank you.”

The young man’s scent didn’t match his words. A light coat of worry clung to him. It was not something a newly Mated male should be feeling. The euphoria usually lasted more than the first night.

“Something on your mind?” I asked, studying him closely.

“Yeah. A few things actually. Grey mentioned you and Gregory roamed quite a bit in your youth. In all your time in the woods, did you come across many families?”

“Not many,” I said, thinking back. “Men who had females kept to themselves. Hidden if they could manage it. There were a few families we knew who welcomed us, but most did not.”

“And how many males did you come across grieving the loss of a daughter or a wife?”

I frowned, wondering what he was getting at. Had Bethi remembered something more?

“A few. Life was hard in the woods. That’s why Charlene made such an impact in so many ways. What’s this about?”

“A suspicion. My parents were killed when I was still a cub, and something about that is bothering me with everything that’s going on now.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“I found them after school. Da was on the floor, his throat ripped out. Ma was in the corner, not far from him. The police blamed it on a break in. But nothing had been taken. Just their lives.”

Luke’s gaze became unfocused.

“Da’s throat told me it was one of our own. Humans typically don’t kill like that. I’d always thought that Ma had tried to stop a fight for territory. We had a good thing there, blending with the humans. But, Bethi says these Urbat have been searching for her kind. What if…while the Urbat were searching for them”—Luke nodded toward the women inside—“they’ve been attacking families and any Mated pairs, reducing our numbers just in case they couldn’t find what they were looking for? It’s easier to take power when there’s no opposition.”

A heavy feeling settled in my stomach. Luke’s grim suspicions didn’t sound as impossible as I would have liked. Back then, territory fights might have ended in death for one of the two males, but a female? We protected our females. Yet, his questions about the Urbat truly troubled me. Bethi only recently revealed the truth of their existence to us. We’d been blind to them and their intention. Could they be behind the many attacks our people had suffered? Attacks we’d blamed on humans?

“There’s something else that’s really bothering me.”

“More than that?”

Luke nodded. “You found Charlene a long time ago. Joshua is proof that there have been traitors among you for a while. So, why now? Why not attack when they first discovered Charlene?”

Luke’s question, along with Charlene’s growing distance, threw me into the past, back to a time when I’d had a black and white view of life and humans.

“Maybe,” I said slowly, “they did.”

“Tell me,” he said.

Past…

I don’t like this, Thomas, Grey sent to me over our link as I shifted to my skin.

“You never do,” I said softly, my gaze on the dark cabin. “But you saw what they did.”

We all had. I couldn’t shake the image of the frozen wolf body we’d found several miles behind us. A single bullet wound to its back. It could have been one of us if we’d been earlier.

After seeing no sign of human tracks around the body, we’d followed the wolf’s trail. It had been shot miles from where it had finally succumbed to the injury. Miles from where the humans had baited the creature and lain in wait.

“We can’t allow them to stay. You know what will happen,” I said.

We both knew firsthand what human hunters would do. They would keep hunting.

Almost eighteen years ago while out on a hunt, our parents had been shot. To protect us, they had led the hunters away from where they’d left us. Grey had waited three days for them to return before going in search. According to Grey, he’d eventually found them under a pine. Cold and in their skin, they’d lain close together. A few days old at the time, I only remembered bits of Grey digging and hunting. I remembered nothing of our parents but what he’d told me.

I do know, he sent quietly. That doesn’t change the risk each time we do this. I don’t want to lose you.

Nor I you, I sent back. So let’s do this carefully.

I crept toward the dark structure and used a cord to noiselessly lift the latch.

Are you almost ready? I sent to Gregory.

Yeah. We’re coming your way now.

I paused outside the door, listening. From within the small cabin, one of the hunters shifted in his sleep then everything quieted again.

They’re on their way, I sent to Grey.

Then hurry up.

I carefully opened the door and stepped inside. A soft glow came from the stove that threw off the heat these weak humans needed to sleep comfortably in our cool northern climates. Two forms lay unaware and huddled under the covers. I touched the scar on my thigh and felt no remorse for what I was about to do. Experience had shown me that humans shot at anything that moved. They took from their habitat, unconcerned with the destruction they left behind.

If they couldn’t concern themselves with the lives they took, neither could I.

Setting the food cache on the floor, I unpacked and opened their processed foods and placed them all over in the cabin. The peanut butter I smeared on their sleeping bags.

We’re almost there, Gregory sent.

I looked back at my work then left the cabin as quietly as I’d entered. I didn’t bother closing the door. The nearby sound of snapping branches forewarned me of Gregory’s approach. Shifting to my fur, I ran for the trees then turned to face the clearing. Grey stood beside me, his hackles high.

Gregory broke through the underbrush and raced toward us. When he reached my side, he turned, and we all started backing away together.

Within the shelter of the trees, we watched the brown bear he’d provoked lumber into the clearing. It rose on its back legs and sniffed the air.

He caught the scent.

I could hear the amusement in Gregory’s message and glanced at him. He watched the bear fall to all four and amble toward the cabin. It snuffled and huffed and nudged its way inside. Within minutes, sounds inside escalated to a startled yell then screaming.

It’s done. I turned to leave.

Grey and Gregory trotted beside me as we left the madness behind. Despite Gregory’s brief amusement, none of us delighted in what we did. It wasn’t revenge. It was survival of a species.

We’ll continue south, I sent both of them, and check the areas we cleared last fall.

Sometimes different humans came back to try again. We dealt with them, too. Never the same way, though. Since we’d started, we’d kept our methods diverse and unique. Brown bears worked well in the countryside where they were plentiful. Besides brown and black bears, we’d used wolverines, an occasional rattler, recluse spiders, an angry elk or moose, and cougars, but they didn’t need much encouraging. Some humans saved us the trouble and fell victim to their own stupidity when lost in the woods.

So many methods and so many humans.

As we traveled south, I recalled our first human cleansing. It had been after Grey and I found Gregory alone.

Humans had entered the woods, clearing trees not far from the family’s territory, just weeks after Grey and I had last stayed with them. Following the path of cleared trees, more humans had arrived with machines to scrape away earth and lay gravel. The humans, machines, and new road had slowly driven the game out of their territory.

That winter the weather turned colder than previous seasons. The already scarce game became a necessary source of sustenance for all predators, not just us.

With little food, Sharon had succumbed to sickness, a rare thing for our kind. Dennis had followed his Mate not long after, leaving fourteen-year-old Gregory alone until we’d returned.

Just thinking about Dennis and Sharon brought a pang. Even after four years, I missed them deeply. They’d been the closest thing to parents I’d ever known. The pair had let Grey and me stay on with them after finding out we were on our own. Gregory and I, close to the same age, had bonded quickly. We had stayed until I’d turned ten, but afterwards had made a point to stop by every time we were close.

Do you smell it? Gregory sent me, interrupting my thoughts.

I raised my nose to the breeze and caught the light scent of another of our kind. A territory marking.