Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 14

Gemma smirked, and copied her, then glanced across at Kate, who promptly leaned in against Bethan's shoulder, her expression also nauseatingly adoring as she gazed at up at the tawny wolf.

Mac glanced down at the trio of worshiping faces and a spasm crossed his face. He snorted, "Oh cut that out," irritably, and the cab echoed with laughter.

*

"Why did you have to get engaged already?" complained Jamie late that evening, sloshing dishes vengefully in the sink. "Mum only keeps mentioning it in passing every five minutes."

Gemma and her older brother were in their parents' kitchen, washing up after a celebratory supper. Jess, Jamie's girlfriend, was in the lounge with their mother, probably discussing fashions, while Mac had been marched off to the garage by his future father-in-law, to undergo preparation for an initiation ritual tomorrow to see whether he was worthy of entry into the family. Trial by fishing.

You can't tell me that fish are really fooled into swallowing one of these squiggly bits of rubber? Mac conveyed to his mate in exasperation. They are so patently fake.

Fish are thick, Gemma replied, a little smile on her lips.

A fingerful of soapsuds landed in her cheek and a hard hip clonked against hers, jerking her awareness back to the kitchen. Jamie was making retching noises. "Will you stop drooling about him?" he said irritatedly, rolling his eyes. "Mum thinks it's sooo womantic, but Dad's getting seriously worried about what a worshipful little doormat you've turned into, I think he's considering pushing Mac overboard in the middle of the bay tomorrow."

Gemma grinned. Ah, tomorrow. Maybe she'd continue like this, and see what Dad did to Mac. He was already bristling with suspicion, and treating her fiancé with a distinct air of wanting a shotgun.

"And now Mum keeps admiring your ring, while looking challengingly at me," her brother complained, vengefully sloshing dishes in the sink, "To which Jess just sighs and looks mournful and martyred and long-suffering."

"She does not," said Gemma.

"Why the hell did you have to get engaged?" James grumbled again, ignoring her interjection.

Gemma wiped the bubbles off her face, shooting an amused look up at him, then struck a pose, clasping both hands at her bosom and assuming a soulful expression while she cast her eyes skyward.

"We love each other," she murmured throatily. Then she laughed, quickly dodging the double handful of soapsuds aimed for her face.

Whoa, picchu, slow down, she heard the soft warning in her head underneath the laughter and swearing echoing in the kitchen. Human speed, remember.

Dammit, Mac had distracted her. Now she had bubbles dripping off her nose.

Serves you right. Little sisters should be more respectful.

Do I detect a little wistfulness in that statement, oh oldest in the family? She returned sweetly.

That wasn't a statement, picchu, her mate purred in return. That was an order.

Doh - Gemma's brain seethed, while she stood still in the kitchen with her eyes closed, feeling Jamie holding a plate over her head so that it dripped suds down the back of her collar. She sighed and picked up the dishcloth again, wondering what the penalty for wolficide was. Alphacide. Whatever.

I order you not to kill me until tomorrow, he teased.

Two and a half hours en counting, she intoned, wiping off a cup.

Hmm, not much time, I think you should go to bed early, Mac mused, his thoughts humming with an edge of excitement. You can plead tiredness. Then sneak into my room. I'm feeling a lot more energetic than last night.

I'm not sneaking through the house! She protested. Dad might catch me.

Better you than me - he doesn't like me anyway, her mate replied.

He'll probably set a tripwire in the hall!

So avoid it. I'll expect you in my bed within an hour, Gem. Wear what you did last night, and bring my present - I've got my secret box - and something that'll keep you quiet while you cum, that moan would be a bit of a giveaway.

"That damn smug grin," growled Jamie beside her, slapping a dripping plate into her hands and jerking her out of her fiery thoughts. "Would you cut it out?"

Gemma just managed to stop herself from whimpering, rocking back on her feet while she blinked the kitchen back into focus. Her pulse was beating in time with the throbbing ache between her legs. Then she remembered to be a respectful little sister - whatever that meant - and tried to wipe the smug grin off her face.

It wouldn't budge.

She sighed happily and went on wiping plates.

"So did you and Jess decide on a new car?" She changed the subject.

Ten minutes later, in the gathering dusk, Gemma's wolf eyes spotted the slow-moving, tall silhouette cresting the high hill behind the house, threading casually through the sparse trees on the old track they all used to take to school.

She recognised that gangly lope.

And the independent spirit.

She smiled. Mom had offered Adam a lift from the station, of course, but despite having been hiking for almost the past month, her little brother had preferred to walk. Or he'd just preferred, like many an independent teenager, not to be picked up by his mother at the station.

Humming happily, Gemma cast the wet dishtowel over the back of a chair to dry, and opened the back door, stepping out into the fragrant spicy scents of the night, the faint edge of decay of the beginning of autumn.

Then she grinned over her shoulder at Jamie and set off at a lope to greet Adam. The whole family was home!

"Slacker," she heard her older brother mutter half-heartedly as he swilled the last two pans in the rinse water.

"Slowcoa - um. Sorry," she replied, stopping her sarcastic retort half way through as she remembered her order to be respectful. She heard her mate laughing in her head and set off at a run down the garden to burn off some of the fire in her blood. Irritation and anticipation. Fifty minutes left. Mmm.

She was humming again.

Her limbs were just made to move like this. As she ran past the current bushes and casually vaulted over the low back gate, Gemma felt a glow of pleasure warming through her, delight in the ease with which her body followed her wishes, joy in the rich scents of the night curling around her.

Mac nudged her with his mind, a little brush of acknowledgement and appreciation.

Oh my most beloved Alpha, I humbly suggest you pay attention to Dad, teased Gemma, trotting up the long hill easily toward where she kept catching glimpses of Adam's white baseball cap in the settling dusk. He's more than capable of testing you on those knots.

Well, this all seems a bit pointless, considering how I catch fish, replied Mac. And if I get stuck I can always ask you.

I'd tell you the right answer, too, promised Gemma sweetly. Today.

Then she settled to run smoothly up the rest of the long hill, a little cramp of half-worried, half-excited anticipation powering her blood. You realise if Dad catches us tonight, I'll expect you to manfully accept all the blame? she conveyed.

Mac was laughing, I'm not a man. And you're the one who's going to sneak into my bed. Tsk tsk.

Gemma growled under her breath. Last time I promise to obey you.

I knew you'd learn, her Alpha replied happily, making a rueful grin twist her face.

The path crossed a tiny stream near the brow of the hill; it was an easy step across, but Gemma leapt over, beaming at the tired frame of the nineteen year old walking towards her.

Adam looked up, saw her, and half-smiled, quickly shrugging himself out of his backpack and dropping it on the ground as he carried on walking.

"Hewaaaw," Gemma drawled their traditional Elmer Fudd greeting.

"Hewow big titch," her brother replied quietly, his voice hoarse. He walked closer, sweeping his cap off his head and rubbing his forehead while he dropped it beside him.

Gemma bounded forward to hug him, smiling a teasing grin, but the fierceness inside her yanked to alert at the last second, jerking her to swerve backwards slightly. Bewildered, she felt the whistle of air past her jugular and an agonizing, deep rake of pain across her left shoulder and breastbone.

What was that scent?

Dazed, disbelieving, she felt herself dodge again automatically, not understanding. This was Adam. Her little brother, not an enemy.

But she saw the glowing glitter light his eyes, watched the fur on the back of his clawed hand spreading like lightening up to his shoulders, across his broadening torso, rippling across his face to outline his soft brown eyes.

The mirror of her own eyes: their mother's eyes.

Tortured, sad and bitter, wet with unshed tears.

Adam.

She blocked his next attack on auto pilot, staring as the claws raked the air inches from her, her heart creasing and bursting into flame as she recognised through the rising black fury in her brain what he was. What he had become.

The scent: half-human, half wolf; the fur; the glowing, angry eyes.

The white Alpha sprinting flat out up the hill towards them, terror in his heart.

Wereem facing werewolf.

The churning feeling in her stomach grew as she read the look in those eyes. The pained misery in the depths; she had a lifetime of sharing thoughts with those eyes, and memories were streaming through her head, stabbing her with the difference.

A clumsy blow caught her as she stared, heart echoing in despair and anger, fighting belief. Her own eyes were burning, throat tight, and the black clouds were beginning to shadow her sight as she was sent spinning across the grass, while the realisation sank in of what someone had done to her little brother.

Because he was her little brother.

Anguish crushed through her.

Please don't! the conveyance from Adam tore into her while she sprang out of his way, and, startled, she met his tortured eyes again, wet with tears as he leapt towards her once more, claws extended.

Then her heart burned while she dodged easily, realising what he meant , hearing the whisper of an order at the edge of her mind. In his mind.

He wasn't talking to her; his burning eyes were distant, inward, but she could hear the words he conveyed. Her brother was pleading with the voice in his head, begging his mordeur to stop forcing him to try to kill his sister. Through the blots of black rage, Gemma saw matching tears rolling down her brother's scrunched face.

Her heart was howling, and she snarled at the tangles in her head clutching at her, the bonds of her pack trying to soothe her, hold her steady.

Why didn't Adam break into rage himself? She thought wildly as she rolled out of the way of his deadly leap. Two small salt drops landed on her burning skin, wept from the terrified eyes of her attacker; terror that he would succeed. Why didn't he break the damn hold? Guilt and pain were rising through her, shaking her to pieces, and she yanked to free herself from the minds clutching at her, the others holding her in this damn pain.

Too new, the reply from her Alpha was muffled by the black, seething clouds of gathering anger. Gem, please try and hold it together. You won't help him by falling into rage yourself. Mac was aching with worry; terror and fury burning from him as he tore flat out up the hill.

Help him? I can't help him. He is a werewolf.

The tears were running freely down her cheeks as she leapt aside again, wracked by the guilt-steeped fear churning in the depths of the glittering eyes of her opponent: his fear that she would never understand this, never accept why he was driven to attempt to take her head off with his claws. Deep, miserable self-hatred because there was no excuse in his understanding. He didn't understand.

There was no reason Adam's human mind could accept; he couldn't accept himself. The knowledge of what was happening to him arced through her as she rolled away from a new, clumsy attack. The bewilderment, the misery, the tearing, wrenching emotions of the werewolf; and he had no songmate. No love.

Alone in his head with that damn mordeur.

She loved him. Their eyes met again, pain echoing deafeningly between them. Gemma's heart was lanced with a deluge of further bone-deep memories dissolving her: flicking images of pushing his pram; running races out to meet Dad together on the driveway; agreeing silently with a look not to tell on each other across the lid of the half-empty cookie jar. Her brain was seething with misery and rage, the inferno rising overwhelming within her, unstoppable, and she yanked furiously again, tearing loose from the pack holds still whispering reason at her. Adam couldn't even escape into insanity.

She had broken into rage on her first night as a werewolf. But her mordeurs weren't Alpha. Adam's would be.

Pain and fury were building to an obliterating power as her mind suddenly glittered with purpose.

Which Alpha? Which Alpha had condemned him? Condemned her brother to this short, sad life. No songmate to hold him, soothe him, restrain him. Nothing but insanity, fear and self-loathing.

Because he was her brother.

Her blood was juddering in fury; her heart, her head couldn't hold this pain.

Soft words were whispering beyond the barrier of the rage that torched higher through her. This time she didn't want to fight it, she wanted to burst free of the bands of pain encircling her, smothering her. Just like the wolf within her, Gemma's most burning desire was to break free, to track down and kill that Alpha.

She swept a leg out at the half-seen, half-sensed approach of the next attack, tumbling the uncoordinated new werewolf to the floor, and fiercely ordered the wolf sprinting up the hill, Look after him, while she sprang easily over the flailing limbs, desperate to escape the anguish in her mind.

Picchu! The cry was a distant echo, forcing its way through the fury. She shook her head and raced on along the track, hunting, back-tailing the eerily familiar, yet different scent of her little brother: the werewolf scent.

Picchu! Come back! Gemma faltered at the fear and grief powering the resonating words through the dark fog in her mind, a wisp of sad apology bursting through her at the deep love in the voice. Mac. I'm sorry, she replied softly, but the pain and rage in her soul were breaking her apart, and she felt the order slide away, unconnected.

Please! Despair.

Rippling through the trees in a full-out sprint, the wereem tore free of the last thread holding her, welcoming the blanket of black anger that smothered the shattering pain.

Then a silvery net twisted tight around her limbs, sweeping her up into jarring, swinging immobility, and the last faint mote of killing purpose in her head burst into berserker rage.

***

Merry Christmas! - the greeting seems a little ironic considering the end to this chapter but hey, it's exciting.

I had four days off work all alone with no family - mmm - but afraid the shorter gap between posting the last chapter and this section is therefore a one-off, sorry, this isn't going to happen again in the near future. Last chapter probably end of February at the earliest, and afraid it's being a real pain to get right - there are so many different threads. Please be patient.

And deep thanks to all of you who send me comments. Any bits of this chapter confusing or annoying or repetitive or pleasing? I really appreciate it when you let me know and vote!

Wolf Glossary:

Alfamme: female Alpha

Argen: silver alloy which debilitates wolves

Asage: mother wolf with young cubs

Changpao: running and living with the wolf [loup] packs

Chituk: territory challenge

Circle: change pack

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

Crash: try to break an Alpha's battle meld

Defasio: personal, formal challenge

Doft: mating scent

Fria: formal welcome, denoting peace

Fur: to shift a material touching fur as though it were part of the wolf

Gensis: pack sense, awareness and connectivity

Loup: what a human calls a wolf (canis lupus); name used for four-legged form by a wolf

Manu: a human

Meld: mental battle formation of wolves, held together by an Alpha

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 or wolves

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 rutmate

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