Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 09

That was why there were so many wolves in this town, Jasmine had once explained. The university sponsored a hydrogen-powered fleet of buses for the local routes, meaning that the wolves could use public transport and blend in more easily with their human counterparts while they furthered their education - both academic knowledge, and the practical understanding of humans which was a necessity for all higher-ranking wolves.

Gemma's eyes softened, a little happy, a little sad, as the beaming daisy whooshed past in the opposite direction. She owed the little flower a lot. Mac would never have moved here, moved in with her, become part of her life, if it weren't for these buses.

What a romantic matchmaker - a bus.

But she flinched away from focussing further on Mac. Since his all-too brief visit, the reports from the Mackeld Range had grown rapidly worse, his defences and counterattacks increasingly dangerous. His close-knit, dwindling force was ferociously fighting their beleaguered corner against the tidal wave of invaders, but until this afternoon, they had been slowly losing their lands, their homes and their hunting grounds. Yes, the Mackelds, the Aster, had regained what they had lost in one magnificent, reckless defiance, but the Tzo still outnumbered them two to one. And the Chinese wolves were now openly using the scent-masking drug. Mac, the Aster couldn't hold much longer, not without a way to counteract the stealth attacks.

And she hadn't found one. She was failing him.

It was then that her burning eyes noticed the new "Mac loves Gemma" scrawled in shaky letters and enclosed in a wonky love heart among the graffiti on the plastic-covered backing of the seat in front of her. She closed her suddenly damp eyes as a lump formed in her throat, heart surging in longing. Was she really such a creature of habit that he knew where she'd sit?

Wolf vandal.

Her lip wobbled. Dammit, it so wasn't his turn.

And dammit, she loved him too. She missed him.

The four of them were in the mall again at lunch time two days later, riding the escalator down to the lower floor, when she spotted the wolf waif for the second time.

The slender girl was seated, uncannily motionless, on one of the benches beside the fountain in the foyer. Her long, jean-clad legs were folded in front of her, heels tucked up on the seat, touching her buttocks, and her arms, lost in a loose, over-large orange jumper, were wrapped around her knees in a defensive pose. Her head rested on her kneecaps, tilted slightly to one side in weariness.

The young face was blank, eyes seeming slightly unfocussed, disengaged, as they drifted over the throng of laughing, passing faces.

Then blue, blue eyes met Gemma's where she stood in her own bubble of self-absorbed isolation, packed in the mass of stationary shoppers on the moving staircase. A spark of incredulous life shot into the lifeless blue, and the girl tilted her head to vertical, chin resting on her knees as her wondering eyes drank in Gemma's features. Those eyes - so like Anne's. The colour, the shape, but mostly the underlying drained, slightly dead look.

Abruptly, the now intent gaze moved on and flickered into panic when it lighted on the three wolves horsing around juggling purchases just in front of Gemma. In seconds, the waif was on her feet and had disappeared into the teeming crowd.

Gemma hesitated, then deliberately steered her friends past the bench where the girl had been sitting moments earlier, but the waif had vanished. And her wolf companions didn't so much as twitch. Definitely scent-masked.

Gemma's eyes lifted, pulled by that feeling of being watched, and she absorbed the intent, hungry look in the young face staring down at her as the Grey wolf girl rode the glass elevator up at the far side of the foyer.

"What're you gawping at?" joked Jeremy, turning to see, "Is he that handsome?"

Gemma's skin prickled in warning, and she turned away with a forced laugh, drawling sarcastically, "Right. Makes Mac look like a wet weekend."

The boys howled with laughter, but Jasmine looked at her friend intently, suspicion sparking in the black eyes.

On the following Monday, on campus, Gemma's eyes were drawn by the glimpse of an orange jumper slipping cautiously into a seat on the back row of the vast theatre where she gave her twice weekly undergrad lectures. Her breath caught slightly. Yes, her full-time wolf guard for today, Jeremy, was way down at the front, carefully stringing together one of those lethal-looking noose-net traps that they kept sending up to the Range, and patently not listening to a word of the lecture, but the waif was too close to him to be safe. Gemma had witnessed often enough by now just how alert her guards were.

But the Grey wolf just hunched low in her seat and kept her glowing eyes fixed wonderingly on Gemma throughout the fifty minutes, never even seeming to blink. It was unnerving.

Over the course of the next two days, it slowly dawned on Gemma that despite the three deadly wolf guards surrounding her, she was being cautiously stalked.

Worshipfully.

By Wednesday lunchtime the prickling in her spine and the taut feeling on her skin were constant. The tension had slowly built from the myriad of sightings of that orange flash of colour, appearing and disappearing in the periphery of her vision as she moved through her life. The wistful longing in the deep blue eyes. Aching with tension and brain fully alert, Gemma cautiously exited the side door of the staff refectory bathroom, leaned back against the brick wall beside the door with her arms folded, and stared across at the nearest clump of trees twenty yards away.

She needed to know what this was about.

Sure enough, a hint of an orange elbow was just visible behind one of the white trunks. Gemma settled carefully back against the warm brick, staring, staring a silent challenge at the stalker hidden not very well among the stand of young silver birches. She had weighed the risk. Gus was waiting outside the bathroom door, and would no doubt hear if she yowled, easily. Her heart was beating fast, but her mind was cool, decided.

Among other things, she had decided not to mention this to Mr Overprotective.

Gemma straightened to stand upright, warily, as an orange and blue blur streaked towards her and then abruptly halted five feet away. The waif hovered from one foot to another, hands clamped around her upper arms, hugging her thin form while her eyes again drank in Gemma's face. Damn hero worship. The tinge of shame in the blue eyes was more understandable, and Gemma felt the familiar light hint of anger begin to tighten in her belly.

"What do you want?" she asked the girl softly.

The big, blue eyes continued to stare at her, awestruck, and then the question registered and a flush spread across the pale skin. The stick-thin wolf girl nervously ducked her head, pulling at her blond hair, her eyes embarrassed as she looked away.

"I -," she whispered.

There was a choked pause, and the slight figure started shivering uncontrollably. Gemma simply waited. Close up, the girl looked unhealthily, dangerously thin and pale, with large, dark hollows around her eyes, every delicate bone on the little gamine face showing starkly under the pasty skin.

"I -," the waif choked again.

As Gemma waited, she slowly absorbed the general air of neglect, of a beaten-down, broken fellow being, and the anger began heighten, boiling through her blood.

The pale lips were moving but the wolf seemed unable to force words out. Then her gaze lifted and she flinched away from the cool sympathy in Gemma's eyes. Something strong, furious, pained, shot across the youngster's face, and the girl burst out, low, "Well, primarily to thank you for Anne, for breaking her bond, getting her free. I could have torn us out too then, followed my natalí, if he hadn't had her killed. But now I -. I wish -"

The waif gulped, and choked into silence again, a spasm crossing the finely-etched features, silent pain drawing tight the pale skin. Her eyes glowed eerily as she stared at Gemma.

But the opening seemed to help, and the Grey wolf soon started whispering again, eyes clear, pained, pleading as she pulled an iPhone from her pocket. "I couldn't hurt you, not after what you did for us, but he has ordered me."

Another pause.

"I am to get a photograph of your naulu, that is why he sent me this time. He thought because of what you did in the shop, and did for Anne, you might let me get close enough, talk."

The wolf-girl shivered and she glanced at the open window beside them, whisper dropping, "Not that he cares if they do spot me." The young face stilled, eyes growing more dull, defeated, "I'm not sure I care either. I'm scared, but at least it would be over - and over quickly, from the sound of it." Her face spasmed again, "But I can't, I can't leave -"

A gulped sob, and there was another long pause. Gemma's mind echoed with emptiness, wondering frantically what to say to a suicidal young wolf. This Grey girl must be about nineteen. Nineteen. How long had she been a victim?

"I would care," was all that came to Gemma's lips, her anger fired by the waste, the hopelessness apparent in the young face. Not a sentiment of any use, but the dull blue eyes lifted swiftly back to hers, a faint hint of the eerie worship lighting the lifeless depths.

"And I'm sorry about Anne," added Gemma gruffly.

A spark of the fire and the pain burned across the pale face again, awakening the wolf waif, and the blue eyes fastened eagerly on the human's face. Pleading, tortured eyes, burning with a spark belief, passion, longing. A spark of hope.

Gemma unwrapped her light jacket, and eased her blouse down over her left shoulder, after uneasily checking around. Just her luck one of her students would saunter into the middle of this. "Take your photo. What does Grey want it for?"

Relief, hope, passionate thankfulness, and adoration flitted across the little, gaunt face and the waif's voice was distracted, surprised that the human had to ask, while she lifted the phone in her shaking hand and pressed the screen to wake it up, not even looking at Gemma while she replied, "To torment Natasha Vanilchov. That her mate has claimed a human."

What? Abruptly, Gemma shrugged her blouse back up, shivering, indignant. Natasha Vanilchov - Vanil's sister, to whom Mac was promised. This Grey didn't have to lie. "They are only betrothed," she corrected her flatly.

What did Nick have to do with Vanil's sister? And Gemma had thought that her name was Natalie, not Natasha? Was Nick planning on posting anonymous photos to her?

She snorted in disgust. It was about the smelly wolf's level.

The blue eyes of the wolf waif lifted back to hers, surprised. "Officially, yes, but that's only because she hadn't been on heat. She reeked of the Mackeld when first she was brought in, mating scent and seed. I was often assigned to groom her in the beginning, and she used to howl his name under torture too, calling to him for help."

Her eyes dropped back to the phone as light flashed onto the screen, and the Grey wolf muttered distractedly, "Now I only do clean-up occasionally, since she was moved, and I'm taken there under total sense deprivation."

The waif shuddered at the memory of that helplessness, sidetracked. "No-one but he knows where she is, he has her incarcerated somewhere no-one will find her, the Mackeld got too close. It's his usual cunning - if he dies now, then she will also starve to death before anyone finds her. So the Mackeld can't kill him."

The words shocked a chill through Gemma. But the shockwave soon met and was smothered under a steady warm glow of anger inside her chest, and the main thought firing through her mind was a sarcastic, Nice try, Nick. Did the Grey leader really think that she was that dim? And insecure? That she knew her own mate so little?

About the last thing in the world Mac would ever do was abandon someone he knew - never mind cared about - in Nick tender care while he accepted exile and sauntered around lazily pulling pints and taking photos, filling in time until he could return to his pack. Yeah, right.

But. This teenager seemed to believe it. Either that, or she was a damn good actress, better even than Bethan. Gemma decided to play along and see if she could learn anything useful.

Mac had been exiled because of his raids onto Grey lands, looking for a hidden lair, the thought peeked into her mind. She swatted it for disloyalty. So Nick had built his lie around some truths. The best liars did.

"Torture?" Gemma asked quietly, wondering why the Grey - oops, why Grey was doing this.

The waif was still pressing the screen of her phone, and answered matter-of-factly, absently, as she turned the camera on. Watching closely, Gemma thought she was a little too careless in her delivery. No-one could be that casual, inured to torture. The images painted by the fresh words the Grey wolf girl was murmuring were causing bile to rise in Gemma's throat, even though she knew it was all made up.

"He uses some conditioning and concoction to try to force her into rut, then to accept his seed so that he can get an Alpha litter on her, and his cubs can inherit. He has succeeded in drugging and paining her into false rut several times but she is unbelievable, still manages to shift human so his seed doesn't impregnate her. Despite all that he does to try to stop her, she still seems to be holding, after all these years. I don't know where she gets the strength, the tchi."

Years of torture. This was unbelievable.

"And Nick thinks that this photo might break her." Gemma's lips were cold as she whispered the cold statement.

Unbelievable.

"Well, by all accounts Tasha doesn't believe what he tells her about the Mackeld having claimed you. She just laughs at him, especially now, since the Mackeld caught him and wounded him so badly that he's been unable to mate for months. His penis will regenerate eventually, but she laughs." The girl shivered, an echo of awe shining in her eyes as she shook her head, thinking of the Vanilchov sjeste.

Nick's cock? When? When had Mac torn him there? In the forest? She didn't think Grey had been seen since.

It's a lie, thicko, remember?

Gemma's stomach was churning - she had nearly been raped by Nick herself, and she couldn't help thinking, what if Mac hadn't been there to stop him? For years? Under torture, pain, and drugs as Grey repeatedly forced himself on her, trying to impregnate her with his seed? This story was making her feel sick. Then a small quirk lifted the corner of her mouth. Well - she loved the idea of Mac ripping Nick's cock off, but sadly she had to throw that idea out with the rest.

Besides, her wolf would've ensured that she was told. What better way to cheer his mate up?

Gemma pulled her jacket together carefully, her hand lifting to her throat to close tightly about the fabric, hiding every hint of the skin of her neck. The blue eyes of the waif lifted to hers, puzzled, "I didn't take one yet."

Gemma's brown eyes were fierce, scorching as they met the blue. "Tell Nicolas Grey I'm not that much of an idiot - he'll have to send a better lie than this." The waif's face fell, shock and panic washing across the pale skin, and she choked as Gemma turned and slipped back into the bathroom.

Her burning eyes lighted on the narrow red porcelain vase which had appeared on the shelf between the mirrors and the basins while she was outside. A delicate, elegant piece of pottery holding a single red-and-yellow tulip. Her favourite flower, as her wolf knew.

Tears flooded her eyes this time.

So un-Mac, that lie.

Gemma lifted her new gift down and kissed and kissed the petals, hearing Gus's gruff voice calling, "Have you drowned in there?" through the door as the soft fragrance of the flower curled around her.

That evening, Gus had just opened the street door to their block of flats when both wolves with her stiffened. Jeremy dropped his backpack and flashed away in a streak upstairs just as a muffled, anguished howl sounded at the top. Gus yanked the keys back out of the lock, scooped Gemma and the bag up, and jumped inside, kicking the door shut behind them while he raced after his twin with the small human tucked on one arm.

Wailing wolf shrieks were now emanating full-volume from the top landing, and as they rounded the bend below the last run of steps Gus dropped Gemma onto her arse on the carpet and leaped into the air, just managing to grab the slender foot of the black-haired lycan who was leaping over their heads, using the stair windowsill as a foothold to propel herself around the corner above them and make her escape.

Gus and his handful landed back together almost on top of Gemma, and Jeremy sprang back down from the top landing, also grabbing at the fighting, yowling lycan. Jasmine. It sounded as though she was in horrible pain. Gus backed off with a sharp grunt as her razor teeth tore his hand from her toes, and a second later Jeremy thudded back against the wall of the stairwell when those powerful hind legs surged against him, claws shredding his coat.

The twins spun to leap back onto the fighting sjeste, but they couldn't hold her, she threw them off repeatedly, and gained more ground down the stairs, despite their best efforts and repeated pleas for her to calm down, control herself. Gemma got a light scratch from one claw when she tried laying a hand on one furred shoulder herself to calm her friend, and realised that as far as she could tell Jasmine was in control. Or Gemma would have had her human hand torn open like Gus's healing wolf one.

What was this? Something was so wrong, achingly, howlingly wrong. So wrong that Jasmine didn't care if she ran through the streets as a werewolf. Gemma blenched. She could see why the twins' were trying to stop her.

But the boys were losing, surprisingly. Jasmine was so small and slender beside their hulking forms, even as a werewolf. But the two of them couldn't subdue the slender girl - possibly because they were trying not to hurt her, only to stop her. However, Jasmine was also damn good at this, she never let them pin her to anything, never let them get a firm hold on her twisting form. A small smile of pride in her friend lit Gemma's eyes.

She missed the sound of the bottom door reopening, the first inkling she had of the new arrival was when Jasmine's head shot up. The sjeste yowled even more fiercely in sudden protest and spun to leap back up the stairs to the flat.

But the fleeing black lycan was pounced on on the top landing by a large, tawny Alpha. Gemma gaped, frozen in disbelief. All she had caught was a blur of white fur turning gold-and-brown as he dove past them on the stairs. Mac.

Dammit, she knew why he was flattening the wolf girl under him, but the rational knowledge didn't stop the rage of jealousy which washed through her as she watched. Stupid, stupid, stupid emotion.

Stupid wolf.

Her mate swiftly and expertly subdued the struggles of the slight, lithe sjeste fighting no-holds-barred under him. His chest was heaving with the burning breaths of an all-out sprint, and he looked slightly wilder, more gaunt, raw, and bitter-edged than when she had last seen him only two weeks ago. However, his careful immobilisation of the young wolf girl was gentle. And effortless. After only moments, while the twins scrambled back to their feet and Gus disappeared downstairs to reassure a worried Mrs. Barraclough on the ground floor, Jasmine stopped fighting and just lay under Mac, sobbing silently into the rough stair carpet.