Artiface of Strength Ch. 03

"Umm Beth," Florence interrupted, "Could you maybe explain what's going on with Tristan to me as well? He is showing some interest in me and I don't know what to make of that either. I mean, as long as you bitches are dead-set on embarrassing the Hell out of me, you might as well go all the way."

"Tristan?" several girls said at the same time.

"Yeah, about that," said Beth, "How did you talk him into betraying me anyway?"

"We were just discussing our sparring session. He told me that he was going to pass me, and then he was going to take me."

"You lucky bitch!" Margie exploded, "I've been trying to reel him in for months!"

"I've done him, Margie," Beth replied dryly. "He was O.K. I guess, although he was kind of vanilla. I mean he's pretty and kind of sweet, but..."

"Oh fuck off Beth! You don't like them unless they are trapeze stars or acrobats," Margie growled back.

"Mmm...acrobats," Beth replied lasciviously, causing the group of women to begin laughing again.

"So what do you think he wants with me Beth," Florence asked nervously.

This conversation was not the one that the women had expected, and since it was about a pack member that many of them had designs upon, most of the women had turned and began to stare at Tristan appraisingly.

More so than humans, wolves possess a sort of a sixth sense when they are being watched, and he was no different. A few dozen women were all examining Tristan as if he were a bug under a microscope, and his ears almost burned from this, even though he couldn't hear a word of their conversation over the thumping music on the jukebox. He looked up in time to catch most of them staring at him. Shuddering, he immediately looked back down and pretended to be suddenly very interested in what might be available on the jukebox. But when the ladies began laughing loudly enough to be heard over the music, he gave up his ruse and looked at the women, hoping that maybe they'd moved on to something or someone else.

Seeing that all of them were still watching him and openly laughing, he snapped and shouted back at them. "Whatever the Hell Beth said, it's a lie! Now you bitches go back to your gossip and leave me the Hell alone!" He then stumbled up on his crutches and made for the door. This only caused the girls to giggle even louder as it wasn't every day that they got to see one of the pack's best warriors fleeing from a pack of drunken women.

"Go ahead Margie," prodded Beth. "Go help him get back to his cabin. I bet you can close the deal now; his big throbbing... ego may need some reinflation after that."

Nervously, Margie's eyes darted over to meet Florence's, looking for any sign of irritation, but she was reassured when she saw only permission there. "Go ahead Margie," the Beta said, "I scented him earlier. He isn't mine...not yet anyway."

"Yeah, go train the poor boy. See what you can do with him," chortled Beth. "Just be careful with his cast; you don't want to damage Flo's best work!"

Margie smirked as she scrambled off her bar stool and out the door after her target. Beth then gave Florence a long look and said, "You know he would have preferred you to chase him. You really don't have to wait until he passes you before you try him out."

"Not really interested Beth. One: He's just two earnest for my taste, and Two: yes, I really do have to wait until then. I need someone who can protect me for a change, and I really don't think he'll ever be good enough to pass me anyway. He is plenty dedicated, but I'm just not convinced that he is sharp enough."

You don't think that he'll ever make Beta?"

"Well, that's up to Alpha John, but I think that he's probably good enough to work as a Beta now. It's just that I think that will be his ceiling; he's a lot better at carrying out orders than he is in giving them. I don't think he has it in him to be dominant enough to become a leader. He said that he's gonna pass me...some day, and that he's gonna take me...some day, but he won't. He can't; if he had it in him, he'd do it now."

"You could be wrong."

"I could be, but I'm not."

Beth thought about this for a moment and then asked, "So Flo, does that mean that for you it will be an Alpha...or nothing?"

Florence sighed audibly and said, "Yeah, that's what John said too.

Beth looked thoughtful again before allowing, "The old bastard is smarter than he looks. You know that right?"

"If he's so smart, why did it take him so long to call me daughter and hug me," Florence shot back quickly.

"He did?" gasped Beth. "Finally? I told him to do that years ago, but I think he was waiting to see if..."

But Beth didn't finish her statement when the jukebox cut off and the clubhouse became quiet once again.

Other than Beth's token, which Tristan had planted earlier, the hopper was still completely full of tokens with Florence's name upon them, so she took the pitcher of real name tags from under the counter and headed over to the drum. She dug out all of the phonies and then poured the genuine tokens back in before giving the drum a couple of turns and drawing out the name of the next victim.

Glancing up at the clock which now read 2 A.M., she said loudly, "and for the very first honest draw of the night, our next and last bartender for the evening will be...Traci. You are up girl, and good luck to you, I think the men all look pretty thirsty now!"

There was a lot of good-natured cheering from those who had dodged the selection bullet, as well as the expected groaning from Traci and her date, who now realized that they had just drawn clean up duty for the night. Most of the women realizing just how late it had gotten, quickly faded away from the bar, looking to collect their mates, while Traci took her place behind the bar without complaint and began pulling drafts for the thirsty wolves.

Beth removed her apron tiredly, and headed over to speak with Florence, who was now sitting in Tristan's abandoned spot by the prize drum. It had been a really long day for Beth; first she had missed sleep the previous night while amusing herself with Phil, then she'd gone on a long motorcycle run and hike with Flo, and finally she had been conned into pulling a shift playing bartender on her actual night off from the Roadhouse. And while it is true that wolves have much deeper reserves of energy than humans do, Beth's legs and back were now feeling every last movement of her last two day's activities. She slowly walked over to Florence, stretching which caused audible snapping and popping sounds.

She longed for sleep, but seeing the determined look in Florence's eyes, she knew that her friend's patience had finally run out. Beth had baited her here with the promise of a story about a naked meeting with two men in a rowboat, and she knew that there was no way that Florence was going to let it go now. Flo had paid the price and she was not going to let Beth escape with the goods. So, Beth sat down next to her friend and began her story, not that she really felt there was all that much to tell.

After Florence had fled, the two humans had fired up their motor and steered their small craft directly for Beth, even though they were perfectly aware that she was lying there stark naked on her beach towel. Beth admitted to being somewhat surprised that the men hadn't really made too big of a deal about her nudity, making far less of it than most humans generally did. The men had even joined her in her picnic lunch, sharing their food and cold beer with her, as she shared the remainder of her wine and cheese that she had brought for Florence. The men had even admitted to taking photographs of the Billington land, and were quite open about the fact that they were continuing to do their survey, even though they were now attempting to defuse any conflict by doing their work from outside of his borders.

Beth freely admitted that she had attempted to flirt outrageously with the two men. She'd even asked them if they'd gotten any good candid pictures of herself or Florence before they'd been spotted.

Phil had just laughed his assent, but remarked that he may have been too tired and sore from the previous night to have gotten the really good shots, and had then wondered if Beth might like to pose for a few just to make sure. William had promptly put an end to that by changing the subject back to Florence and to where she might have gone.

Ignoring William's question, Beth instead doubled down on her flirting. She did her best to work the men up by slowly and subtly touching herself, framing her best assets and trying to get the men to stammer or stumble.

She laughed about turning Phil into a stammering, drooling idiot, but her best efforts had little impact on the younger man. It seemed that William only had eyes for Florence, and even though he would spare a glance for her when she was being particularly seductive, he never lost focus on his ultimate target, namely, where had Florence gone, and would she be coming back?

Beth didn't let it bother her in the least; she'd never been the diva type. She didn't need every man's attention; one at a time was plenty. Actually, she quite respected a human that could manage to have other interests and would not respond to what she only considered to be mild flirtation. It only strengthened her conviction that there might be something here for Florence. Clearly, he was quite taken with her.

After giving it her best shot, Beth gracefully allowed William to steer the conversation back to Florence, going on to describe her as twenty seven years old, single, hard-working, and living with her uncles after the death of her parents. She also pointed out that Flo was a major fitness buff, given to perpetually running, sparring, and working out, rarely paying attention to anything other than her job, which she took quite seriously.

Will had peppered Beth with questions about Florence, digging for anything he could get out of her about Florence's likes and dislikes, clearly trying to find a way into her good graces. Beth had fielded all of the questions that she could answer truthfully, while artfully lying when necessary to cover up the fact that both women were Were. She'd hidden her amusement when she realized that any human woman would likely kill to be able to shave fifty years from her age.

In turn, she had managed to extract information about William as well. He was thirty two years old and had been born in the Pacific Northwest where he had been raised by his grandfather and then the United States Marine Corps. He had joined at seventeen and had served two terms before separating from the service and becoming a private contractor in both Afghanistan and Iraq. She could tell that he was unhappy about leaving active service, but he wouldn't say why, only that he had worked for Burton Waters ever since.

William also told Beth that he knew that he was partially Native American, even though he didn't really know to what percentage. He understood that his grandfather was a full-blooded Kiowa-Apache, but knew little of his own parents who had died from alcohol abuse shortly after his birth. His grandfather had always just said it was due to the white-man's poison and then refused to say any more about them. Ultimately, Will said that he always just wrote Native American down on the forms and left it at that.

Seeing that Beth was not giving much up, William had eventually tired of the fencing and just openly asked how he might contact Florence.

Beth said that she'd laughed and admitted that she'd been wondering if he would ever get brave enough to ask. She then told the man that Florence would likely be jogging through the small tourist town some time before breakfast tomorrow as that was her usual pattern on Sundays, telling him that you could almost set a watch by Florence.

"You did what?" exploded Florence, interrupting Beth's story. "You dragged me out to the clubhouse tonight; you kept me awake way past the time that I would usually be asleep, and now you wait until almost three fucking A.M. to tell me that William is going to be waiting for me early in the morning?!"

"I told him to expect you to run by at about 6:30."

"Beth, you are a bitch, a complete fucking bitch!"

"Yeah? Well, so are you. Neither one of us has found our mate yet." Beth replied with an easy grin. "But maybe we'll both be Madams one day. How does Madam Yazzie sound?"

"Hello, Earth to Beth; he's a fucking human, there is absolutely no way, and you freaking know it!"

"Yeah, you are probably right about that, but that's exactly why, Flo. You need this. You need to be unprepared for things once in a while. You need to have some interactions with the opposite sex. Hell Flo, you need to get laid, and if you won't even consider doing it in-pack with Tristan, then you might as well do it with this human male. He's strong for a human; he seems to be smart. He's way good looking. What else do you need?

"Some sleep would have been nice," grumbled Florence.

"It's over-rated," Beth replied dismissively, "and besides, it's not like he'll be able to keep up with you even if you get no sleep at all. Think of it as giving him a handicap; this way he might even stay close enough to pique your interest. Not that he'd smell your arousal anyway, humans never do."

"That reminds me, what does he smell like? Every time that I've attempted to scent him, he's been doused with something. I still have no idea if I'll even like his scent.

"Hard to say girlfriend, I was lying there naked and trying my best to tempt him, but Phil was dumping so many pheromones into the air, I didn't get much from William. He didn't send much my way; I figured that either he was totally into you, or that he was gay."

"No smell at all?"

"Well, nothing unusual. He smelled like a normal human I guess. His scent didn't strike me as different from any other human- human man with a horny friend maybe. Oh, and before I forget; Phil won't be there tomorrow. He asked me if I was going to come jogging too, and when I told him, 'no', all he said was 'Thank God'. I told him that sensible people slept in on Sunday, so he invited me to dinner instead."

"So let me get this straight. I'm getting up early tomorrow... well, today," Florence said while looking at the clock on the wall, "while, you are sleeping in and then going out on a fancy dinner. Have I got that right?"

Beth smiled and said, "Isn't life wonderful?"

"I hate you Beth."

"I love you too, Flo."

Less than three hours later, Florence staggered out of her bed, still half-asleep, but already cursing her friend. The five minutes that she allowed herself to shower and get ready didn't even begin to fully wake her. She had to hurry though, because today she would have to dress in human clothes, rather than run to town as a wolf. This would take considerably longer to get there, but it was better than trying to pack up a set of shoes and clothes and then have to find a place outside of town where it might be safe to shift. She also feared that being as tired as she was, she'd get to town missing something important. It just wouldn't do to arrive for her run missing her left running shoe or sports bra, so she grumbled to herself and finished getting dressed.

She exited her cabin running and growled once again; here she was out for a run and even though the sun wasn't even up yet, she was fully dressed. She longed to shift so she could run naked under the last remnants of the moon. Repressing her natural urge to run, to shift, and to hunt, she instead set herself to cursing Beth in new and exceedingly creative ways.

Gradually the false dawn gave way to the real one; Florence continued to run, and as she ran, she continued to swear. Sweat was now dripping down her face and soaking into the clothes she wore. Irritated, she wondered why human bodies perspired so much; life was so much simpler as a wolf.

Realizing that when William caught sight of her that she'd be a sodden, smelly mess, she considered that while she hadn't yet been able to smell him, that even as a human, he'd surely be able to smell her. So she set her mind back to finding a way to get even with Beth. She's been running me wild for two days now. Maybe some itching-powder in her bar-ho uniform? No, that'd never work; the bitch keeps lots of clothes in her office at the Roadhouse. Maybe I should burn her wardrobe? No, that wouldn't work either; the slut loves to shop and that would just give her an excuse.

As she ran on, her fantasies of Beth's demise just got increasingly grisly, more so when she found that her clothing had begun to sweat completely through. I will kill her, I will kill her, I will kill her became her mantra as she ran along.

A few kilometers away, Will sat on the edge of his bed and watched the sun rise through his hotel window. He'd had plenty of sleep and getting up early had never been a problem for him. As a boy, he'd always gotten up with his grandfather to greet Aqalax, the old woman who brought the sun. Later in his life, he'd found that morning reveille came later than this, so he was always the first one out of his bunk, and this in turn, had led to several quick promotions and what had promised to become a long and successful military career.

"Damn you Liz, you had to go and wreck everything," he thought for the thousandth time. "Money, you had to have so much money; a life of service to others just didn't appeal to you."

He knew better than to start the day with negative memories however, so he put the mistakes of his past away and began to focus on his future, a future that might just be running his way now. She runs every morning, spars constantly, and her friend claims that she lives to serve her family. I wish that I'd met her earlier in my life; maybe I wouldn't be stuck here working for that bastard Waters!

Finding himself looking forward to this run more than anything he'd done in a long time, William quickly showered and dressed before making his way downstairs and beginning his usual routine of morning stretching.

As he worked his calves and hamstrings, he wondered if Florence even knew that he was here waiting for her. He'd hadn't actually committed to being here for sure, it had been implied, but then again, Beth had struck him as being just ornery enough to deliberately forget to clue her friend in beforehand. She was clearly a major handful, and because of that, just Phil's type...as his friend had insisted on telling him over and over, and over again on Saturday.

William was glad that he had his own room and had not been forced to share with his undisciplined friend. It was bad enough the day before when he'd been stuck in a small boat being forced to listen to Phil's blow by blow account of his previous night's encounter with Beth. If he'd missed sleep while Phil was out hunting his next conquest, he would not have been ready for today's run.

He'd had plenty of that when they'd served together in Iraq. Never again would he willingly share a room with his best friend. He loved the idiot like a brother, but enough was enough. Despite Phil's opinion, William believed there was more to life than the next conquest and a bellyful of booze.

Now bent over, still stretching his hamstrings, William was locked deep in thought when Florence came running into view. Even seeing her from his odd vantage point while upside down, he was struck by her seemingly effortless gait. He noticed that she was covered in sweat, proving that she'd been running for some time, and yet, she looked like she had just begun to run.

He stood up quickly, preparing to wish her a good morning, expecting that she would slow down to greet him, only to realize that she was speeding up, rather than slowing down. His first thought was that she didn't see him standing there, but then he heard her laughing something about 'slow-poke men' as she shot by his position at a near sprint. His next thought was that, yes, Beth had certainly warned her that he'd be here.