Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 09

The surge of Jasmine's legs against her shoulders as she launched herself at the Grey wolf guard pushed Gemma from her precarious purchase, and she banged her head hard against the brickwork as she tumbled to land on top of the unconscious Grey waif at the foot.

Stars revolving behind her eyes, she saw a large, chocolate-and-cream blur diving past into the room, snarling ferociously. As she sat up, shaking her dazed head, a second, third, fourth, fifth wolf leaped past her to join in the fray.

Marsh was impossible to see, a whirling fury against the tide of Greys fighting to get in through the doorway. Jasmine was at the other side of the room, tearing into the newly arrived Grey wolves trying to force an entry down the passageway to the left. Two of the other Marsh wolves had leapt into position as a shield-wall between the fight and the window embrasure. Cubs kept scooting, yelping and whimpering, between the Marsh guards' legs, guided or swung to safety behind the two fighters by the other Marsh warriors out fighting in the room, fighting to bring them in to safety. Ada stirred, pushing herself upright off the cold stone floor, shaking her head painfully but answering the desperation in the scared young voices.

Ignoring her own shaky limbs, Gemma swiftly climbed up the embrasure, jamming her limbs against opposing walls to steady herself in the classic, familiar climbing technique. One foot slipped, but she caught herself, then she was at the top, and rolled, panting, to lower her rope-sling. Between them, she and Ada began to haul the remaining cubs up to safety. One eight-year-old appeared at her shoulder, one of the first ones out, and he soon hurried off with a group of his younger pack-mates to the park, promising breathlessly to return later for more. His eyes were shining in glee, pride, as he glanced down through the window at the fight.

It was now pitch dark, and Gemma was a bit worried about letting little kids - ok, wolfcubs, but they looked like children, wander alone about the streets. Then she glanced back through at the bloodbath in the room below, hauling up the next cub with her aching arms, and realised that out was safer. Most of the cubs still in the room were now in relative safety behind the shielding wall of two hulking Marsh fighters, but tears burned her eyes when she saw a small, inanimate body rolled in a corner, blood on the lycan fur and a trickle painted from his mouth.

There was another terrified cub trapped across the room, curled as a wolf as far back in a corner as she could away from the menacing advance of a Grey, but the aggressor disappeared beneath chocolate brown fur in a violent spurt of blood before he could reach her. The cub's scared yi-yi-yi squealed over the other sounds in the room as she was tossed, limbs splayed, across the heads of the fighters, caught gently by the waiting member of the shield wall, and placed carefully with her young packmates waiting to be hauled to safety. Gemma didn't even see Marsh move, she just had an impression of a chocolate-and-white coloured rage scouring around the room.

Feverishly, she lifted the latest cub out of the sling, steadied it on the roadway with the four already clustered against her, and dropped the sling back down through the window. The Greys kept pouring into the room below, more and more of them, and Marsh, Jasmine, and the lone fighter still standing with them were being forced back toward the window embrasure.

Another cub. Another. She ignored her straining arm muscles' shrieks that they could do no more. No more. None of the four-or-five year olds weighed too much, individually. However, pulling ten, fifteen, twenty of them up a fifteen foot drop seemed to be pulling her burning arms from their sockets. But she could do one more. And one more after that. And still one more. Another.

Then abruptly Jasmine arched in a scream in the melee below, body convulsing in agony although no injury appeared, and slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Instantly, Marsh was standing over his inanimate daughter protectively, ripping the arm from one Grey as the enemy reached for her, sending a second flying in a spray of blood to smash into one of many the wolves pouring through the entrance. The Grey troops doubled their efforts to break through and seize the unconscious Alfamme. Then suddenly one huge Grey wolf's nose lifted, listening, he twitched to a voice inside his head, then with a ferocious snarl he turned and leapt onto one of his own packmates, protecting the Alfamme who had guided his cub to safety. The melee broke up into a heaving seethe, Grey fighting Grey fighting Marsh, chaos tearing around the room choked with stampeding, furious fighters.

The shield wall around the remaining three cubs was overwhelmed and broke, the Marsh warriors swooping around to lift the cubs and toss them up the long wall to Gemma; she fumbled the third rapid catch, horrified, and heard the desperate squeak as the small lycan tumbled back down the long drop. But Ada leapt and caught him, swinging him behind her slight form where his claws clutched, digging into her orange sweater and the skin of her back. The Grey lycan spun grimly back to face the attack of her packmates with the small cub clinging between her shoulder blades, crouching instinctively as flat as he could to her back.

A slight sound behind Gemma, the squealed snarl of one of the cubs pressing against her legs, and she suddenly felt a wash of tingling burn through her like pins and needles, disorientating her. A simultaneous sudden surge of rage and alarm made her spin on the spot, tripping over her too-large trainers while her thighs suddenly pulsed in pain, unmovable in the tight constriction of her jeans, and she fell onto her back just as a handful of razorsharp claws raked through the air where her throat had been a second before.

Assailed by a wave of scents and sounds, disbelievingly, Gemma stared up at the clawed, hairy fist protruding from the long black greatcoat of the man standing glaring down at her for the split second before he exploded backwards under the impact of the massive, frosty-haired four-legged animal who pounced on him over her.

Human or loup in the city, the harsh rebuke burned into Gemma's brain, and the wash of pins and needles obediently fired through her again before she even realised. The ferocious fight between what were now twenty or so huge dogs was being driven down the street to her left and back within the buildings, while she sat up, staring in bewildered disbelief at the splits along the side-seams of her jeans, where the cold night air was stroking along her thighs.

She could hear, sense the huge numbers of wolves pouring into this area, surrounding the buildings, fighting their way into the Grey lair on every side of the huge complex. Her mind was linked with the mesh of seething thoughts pulsing through the streets, and she flinched, trying desperately to pull away from the chaos, the close, claustrophobic constantly-shifting weave of the pack focus.

No. No. This wasn't possible. No way.

Mind battered as it was swept along in the whirling, chaotic current, she managed to drag a corner free and just stared at her hand. It looked the same as ever. But - she could smell it vividly, her own hand, lying limp at the end of her wrist.

No.

Her stomach was churning with the whirling, unbearable pull in her head.

She had turned into a werewolf.

When?

How?

How the hell did that happen? The thought blasted her from the side, from the outside, yet confusingly the deep, pulling voice was inside her own head, and she found she was cringing instinctively under the overpowering, echoing rage, even as her own anger rose to meet it. Like she knew?

The battering fury lightened at the obvious bewilderment in her own thoughts, and Gemma found herself anchored, steadied in the wild maelstrom of the pack meld, held clear in a little protective bubble.

Her mate was just as polite in his thoughts.

She was nudged with his amusement at her waspish opinion, then felt an overwhelming surge of longing, lust, fear and love swamp her. She had no idea if it was from within or without her own mind - or even if there was a separation between them. Suddenly a frantic, claustrophobia engulfed her, and she found she was clawing mentally at the cushion surrounding and steadying her mind. As the strangling fear rose in her throat, Gemma abruptly felt herself free, cut loose, separate and whole again.

Take those cubs to the park, Mac's parting order echoed in her soothingly quiet head.

In her freedom, Gemma felt a wistful surge of stubborn wantonness rear up within her, urging her to ignore the order and just find him, pounce on him. It had been months. The lust was rising powerfully within her, pulling at her - although she had no idea which way to go. The sense of him somewhere near was not directional.

But oh so tempting.

The heat in her blood was dragging at her, shuddering through her veins as her mind clouded with lust.

Then one of the cubs leaning against her knee whined, and she awoke suddenly to awareness of the sense of them. The youngsters clustered around her exuded a wild, scared, vulnerable melee of scents and thoughts which raised the hairs on the back of her neck and made her skin ache with protective fire. A scent which got her moving to guide them to safety, order or no order.

As she staggered along with the fire cooling in her, a rueful, slightly shivery remembrance also hit. Mac was in the middle of a battle. DUH.

It was only her own thoughts battering her now, internally.

More than how, or when.

Who had turned her?

*

Thanks for waiting. Believe it or not, I have cut a lot out of this chapter, it was hard to make cohesive. And many thanks for all the comments and votes for the last one. If you have a minute please let me know if there are any bits you think this chapter could have done without, or which could have done with more description/ elaboration. Or please just vote!

Alfamme female Alpha

Argen silver alloy which debilitates wolves

Asage mother wolf with young cubs

Chituk territory challenge

Convey send information mind-to-mind, either by words or images/ feelings

Defasio personal, formal challenge

Doft mating scent

Fria formal welcome, denoting peace

Loup what a human calls a wolf (canis lupus);

name used for four-legged form by a wolf

Manu a human

Mordeur the wolf who a werewolf answers to, the one who bit and turned him

Mortefio death challenge

Natál litter-brother

Natalí litter-sister

Naulu mark of protection

Phys physician, wolf doctor

Piquant battle headache

Picchu little jug of sweetness (personal nickname)

Ruggare young male wolf

Ruhkreis circle of peace for mates during the rut

Shiatz healing coma

Shiele essence, personal strength

Sjeste young female wolf or wolves

Sjestval female's right to leave a mate

Wereem female werewolf

Werewolf human who has been bitten and turned, not born a shapeshifter

Wolf natural born shapeshifter with three forms, human, lycan or wolf;

name used for lycan form by a wolf