The Porch Wolf Ch. 11-20

Vicki let loose another scream. "We will. Take care of her." I ended the call and looked in the mirror; Vicki looked miserable, and Liv was freaking out.

Anita took over the situation while I drove. "Liv, take her out of the booster and lay her clothes down on the floor. She can't be strapped in the booster as her body changes, and I don't want anyone to see her or for her to fall off the seat as she moves. As the change comes, her body temperature will go way up, and clothes will feel like they are poking her skin."

"All of them," Liv asked as she pulled her sweatshirt off.

"You can leave her panties for now. Vicki, I want you to get on your hands and knees on the floor when Mom sets you down." It took another minute before she was down there. In the meantime, I told the adults to put on their winter gear before I turned off the heat in the truck and turned the blower up. The subzero weather was a blessing because I could use the cold air to cool her down and not lower the windows.

"How long does this take," Liv asked.

"For a toddler, an hour or two. Vicki's doing it at a much older age than normal, so I'm not really sure. I'm hoping we get home before it gets too far along."

"Her skin is so red!"

"It's flush from her temperature, and because the fur is getting ready to come out." Liv reached down to touch her back, and it caused her daughter to scream. "Don't touch her anymore," Anita said.

I wished I was able to be back there and help the two through the shift because it was heartbreaking to listen to. Vicki was in a lot of pain, that would come in waves and leave her panting. Liv was out of her mind with worry and unable to do anything. When the bones started to snap and reform, all we could do was offer encouragement.

Anita was a wonder, always positive and even-keeled as she talked Vicki through the change.

It took us fifty-one minutes to make it home. I pulled the truck into the garage, and Vicki was carried right into the kitchen. The table and chairs had been moved out of the way; a tarp was in place under older blankets. Vicki was set down, her young body misshapen and twisted. Her arms and legs were farthest along. "Everyone except Anita and Donna, head downstairs," I said. I herded them out of the kitchen area to the stairs.

"Stay, unky," a weak voice said. "Stay."

I smiled as I turned back to my Sharkbait. "I'll be here as long as you need me, but I'll be right back." I went down the hall to my bedroom, stripped, shifted, and trotted back to the kitchen. "You're such a brave girl," I sent to her.

As more of her body shifted, she was no longer able to talk; grunts, screams, and growls were the "Wolfy wants out," she replied. My eyes opened wide at her send.

"She sent to me," Anita sent with a big smile. "I heard you, Sharkbait!"

"Hi Beta," she said. "Wolfy says it finish up soon."

Anita called her mate and Brent into the room as she told Liv what her daughter had sent. "The change accelerates as it goes, so it won't be long now."

Vicki was on her side, fur sprouting along her back. Anita took scissors and cut away her underwear as grey fur started to fill in. Her spine shifted and cracked, sounding like firecrackers as her bones realigned and a tail grew in. "Relax and let your wolf come out, Vicki," I told her. "She's going to be a beautiful wolf."

A scream cut off in the sound of bones breaking and crunching; her face was shifting now. Her jaw extended forward, the teeth changing as it turned into a muzzle. Her ears grew pointed and moved up the side of her head, and her neck thickened and moved up from her broadening chest. Fur was covering her skin now.

A minute later, and it was over. Vicki had passed out from the pain, and in the place of the little girl was now a juvenile wolf the size of a small German shepherd. Her mouth was open, her long tongue hanging out as she panted to catch her breath.

You couldn't miss the smell of her Alpha Mantle mixed in with her juvenile wolf.

"She's so beautiful," Liv said as Anita motioned for her to go to her daughter. Now that the shift was over, it wouldn't be painful for her to be touched anymore. "Her fur is so soft!" Vicki started to growl softly, a rumbling deep in her chest as her mother scratched and petted her fur.

"You know what she looks like," I sent to my other Pack members. Her fur was solid steel-gray on top, moving around to her upper legs. Her belly, chest and up to her lower jaw was white, along with her paws and the tip of her tail. It was a distinctive two-tone color scheme.

"Liv, what does her fur color remind you of," Anita said with a giggle as she figured it out.

"Gray on top, white on the... oh my God... she's a LAND SHARK!"

"SHARKBAIT! HOO HA HA," all the others in the house yelled out in response.

"Could she be anything else," Brent said with a laugh.

Vicki opened her eyes, looking around at the people in the room. Her tail started to move as she saw my big wolf lying next to her, looking into her eyes. "It's over, you're a wolf now," I told her.

She raised her head, then struggled to her feet. She fell as she tried to move. "Let your wolf take over, if your human mind is in charge, you'll trip over your paws," she told her. It took her a few minutes to get the hang of it before she was walking around, sniffing and licking at everyone who had come to see her.

"Tell them to shift and go outside, it's time to welcome Vicki to the Pack with a quick run," I told Brent.

He passed the instruction along, and the wolves moved out of Liv's sight to strip and shift. They filed out the back door and down the stairs as Liv held it open. "Do you want to go along," Brent asked her.

"How? Oh." She gave him a smile. "Give me a few minutes to get dressed."

"You have time. Leo is going to take her out through the garage, so she doesn't have to learn stairs in the snow," he said. "He said you should put on your snowmobile gear and a hat."

She ran up to the apartment to change while I walked Vicki out to the garage. I jumped up and hit the button to open the garage door in front of the snowmobile. Vicki ran under the door, turning to go run up the snowbank on the side of the driveway. "Wait for your mother," I told her.

"I want to play! Wolfy is fun!"

A few minutes later, Liv came out in her winter gear and climbed on top of Brent's. Donna was staying behind, and she looked at me. I barked at her as Vicki slid down the snowbank, shaking her fur off at the bottom.

Donna was staying behind, and moved to close the door. "Have fun," she said. "I'll make some hot cocoa, and cut up some meat for our new wolf."

"Let's go, Miesville Pack," I said.

"ALPHA LEO!" Vicki said as she ran up by me. I trotted around the side of the garage with Vicki on one side and Brent and Liv on the other. The other wolves were gathering in the back behind the pool fence. I gave a soft howl and started moving faster towards the woods behind my house. I was careful to keep to a pace that Sharkbait was comfortable with. Vicki's confidence and control improved by the minute, and soon we were in a good run for her. I led them along a path in the woods, turning back after ten minutes and emerging in the back again. We went around to the garage, where Donna had the doors open for us.

Liv hopped off, her smile a mile wide as Brent followed the others into the house. She took off her gear and hung it up again. "Are you going to tell her how to shift back," she asked me.

"Not until tomorrow," Anita said as she walked back out into the garage. "The first shift is hard on the body. We'll feed her and let her body recover overnight. After that, shifting is easy and fast."

"Unky, I need to go to the bathroom," she said.

"Follow me, Vicki," I said. I led her to a sheltered patch of trees behind the house, marking the edges with my scent. She squatted down with her tail out to pee, then dropped a steamer in the snow and ice. "Good job. Let's go get some food," I told her.

"Okay." We ran back in, and this time Liv closed the garage door behind us and let us into the house. All the people inside gave her a cheer and told her how proud they were of her shift.

Donna gave her a bowl of cubed raw steak, which she gobbled up before taking a drink. It didn't take long for her eyes to close as she laid down in Liv's lap on the couch by the fire. I'd shifted and dressed, and I could see Liv was exhausted as well. "Let's take her upstairs, you both should sleep," I said.

"You're right," she said. I picked the small wolf up like a baby and followed Liv towards the stairs. "Today was a lot to deal with. It was hard dealing with the arrangements for my grandmother, it was fun at the Mall, I was close to a breakdown with her shift, and now I'm just so happy for my little girl."

"You've both shown incredible strength with everything that has happened. I knew you had it in you, you're an overcomer."

"You've been great, too," I said.

Brent was waiting by the door. "Liv? I don't want to scare you, but I'm pretty sure my wolf is going to want to be close to you again tonight. He doesn't like being in the basement."

She looked at me, and I nodded. "You'll behave yourself?"

"I won't go into your bedrooms. I'll be fine on the floor."

She let out a breath. "You can sleep on the beanbag or the couch," she said. "Come on."

She opened the lock and held the door to her apartment open. "Do you want her in her bed," I asked.

"Put her in mine, I don't want her to wake up alone," Liv told me. I followed her down the hallway, placing Vicki on the comforter at the foot of her bed. When I turned around, Liv grabbed me around the waist and pressed her face to my chest. "Thank you, Leo. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You're family, Liv. Your daughter is my niece, and you are part of my Pack now. We will all protect you, but most of all, we will support and love you."

She stepped back and wiped her eyes. "Goodnight, Leo."

I gave Vicki one last pat on the head and turned to go. "Goodnight, Vicki. I'll make sure Brent stays in line." She closed the bedroom door behind me.

Brent was already in his wolf form, his clothes folded and on a table next to the couch. "You do not enter her room without an invitation unless it is an emergency," I told him. "Stay in wolf form until you leave, or she asks you to change. And for Luna's sake, no dog farts."

"I'll behave, Alpha. My wolf is settled now."

I walked down the stairs, the exhaustion hitting me too. A week ago, my life was nice and quiet.

It wasn't now.

Ch. 19

The days leading up to the New Year were hectic for our little Pack. Both of us had interviews with the FBI, who were looking into who else might have been involved in the kidnapping attempt. When they searched their Stillwater home, they found evidence that pointed to a decade of criminal activity. Cash, burner phones, guns, and burglary tools were all present. The jewelry and other items they found tied the couple to a string of increasingly dangerous burglaries, including several home invasion robberies.

The problem was that nothing had been taken from their home, except Liv and Vicki.

We had discussed what we were going to share with the investigators and agreed we would not mention anything about werewolves or Alpha mantles to the humans. We did agree that she could tell them about Vicki's father and how he reacted to the news that she was pregnant. Larry thought it would help keep the Marengo Lake pack off our backs if they knew the Feds were watching them.

Both of us were involved now because John Petersen, formerly Ivan Volkov, was my younger brother. I told them part of the truth; that John had married and move to Wisconsin, and we hadn't been in touch since after my wife died. I'd withdrawn from my family, and he gave up trying to see me. I didn't know until after Liv came to stay at my house and saw the photos that John was Vicki's father. She had not had contact with John since he told her to get an abortion. When asked why she didn't list his name on the birth certificate, she was blunt. "To him, I was a nothing more than a fun fuck before he went back to his new wife. I wanted nothing to do with him and nothing from him. He would have no claim on my baby, EVER."

Truth, not the whole truth.

They promised her they would follow up with him, but they wouldn't get much. They hadn't been able to keep our names out of the paper, but none would reveal that they were now living with me. "She's my niece, and they have nothing. We've been friends for years, and I had an empty apartment above my garage. My in-laws brought them to my home after the attack, and she accepted my offer to rent it to her. Neither of them can handle being in the place Grandma was killed, and it was in her grandmother's name, not hers."

The advantage of stalking her meant that I wasn't a suspect. They did interview people at Wiederholts and in the neighborhood, but they wouldn't find anything.

I gave the agents the information I had on him, including his address and a photograph from his wedding.

The FBI also asked about Liv's relationship with her parents, and she was open about that too. She told them their reaction to her pregnancy and how they had disowned her. When Liv went to live with her Grandmother, they cut ties with her as well. "They don't want anything to do with me or my daughter, and all the kidnapping did was embarrass them. They didn't care enough to kidnap us."

She called Mike at Wiederholt's and tried to quit her job. "The FBI thinks someone hired the kidnappers, and I might still be in danger," she told him. "It is going to take months to deal with my mother's estate and everything else. I don't want you to hold a job open when I don't know if I'll ever return," she told him.

I could hear his response. "That doesn't mean you have to quit. Take a leave of absence; if you need two months, call me back in February and let me know how you are doing. Everyone misses you around here; almost every night someone asks me about you."

"I'll be all right. Grandmother had some insurance, I might go back to school full time when things settle. Thank everyone for thinking of us."

"We'll see you at the memorial service," he said. "In the meantime, if you need anything, just call."

"I will."

He paused for a second. "Have you talked to Leo? I still can't believe that the old man took those two out. Is he all right?" I bristled at the 'old man' comment, I was *only* 51!

"Leo is doing ok. It was a shock for everyone, but thank God he stopped them before they got out of the parking lot. God knows what would have happened to us if he hadn't been there." I smiled; I had defended my family, and I felt satisfied. It was the first Alpha-like thing I had done in years.

"I think it will be a while before he has to pay for his dinner in my place. He's a hero."

"He also killed two people in front of a young girl, and that isn't easy to get over. We've all got some things to work through. Thanks, Mike. I'll stop in when I can and pick up my check."

"We should go Tuesday; they'll expect me there," I said. "If all of us go, we'll be safe there."

"I don't know," she said, "Would a house full of werewolves want to eat huge slabs of prime rib?"

I tried to keep a straight face, lasting a heartbeat longer than she did. "It would be good to see your friends there, and Sharkbait loves her beef now."

Liv rolled her eyes; ever since the shift, Vicki had been eating a lot of meat, the rarer, the better. Some of the Winona Pack members even took down a buck, dragging the fresh meat into the woods behind my home. Vicki had come out with the others, getting her first taste of 'fast food' in her canine form. Anita had been training her hard, taking her out every night from sundown until past ten in her wolf form. She was learning how to function as a wolf and use her senses to her advantage. She learned how to run in the dark, how to move without making noise, how to stalk, and how to track. Last night had been her proudest moment.

Flashback

"Unka Leo, bring Mommy to the back door," she sent me just after nine. I found Liv with the others downstairs and brought her up to the kitchen. When we opened the door, Liv jumped into my arms and screamed. Like a cat, Vicki had brought Mom a fat jackrabbit in her mouth, the blood staining the fur around her mouth. "Momma doesn't like my present?"

"Momma didn't expect her little wolf to be bringing her dinner," I sent back. I managed to turn Liv back to look at her daughter. "It's all right. Is that your first rabbit, Vicki?" She nodded. "I'm very proud of you. Go back to the woods and eat it, then wipe your face in the snow before you come inside." She ran back down the stairs and into the woods as I closed the door.

"I suppose I have to get used to her eating other animals, but did she have to bring it to me?"

"She was proud of herself and wanted to show you. Catching a rabbit isn't easy; she has to stalk close enough before attacking and be quick enough to get it before it escapes. It's a testament to how fast she's learning."

"It freaked me out a little. I'll be sure to congratulate Vicki and Anita, right after she finishes brushing her teeth and taking a bath," Liv said.

Present time

The training was leaving her exhausted each night, and she was sleeping until nine or ten in the morning. During the day, Anita was teaching both of them about living in a Pack and around other wolves. After lunch, the two of them went up to their apartment for classes, while I went to my office. The first order of business was to make a reservation for twenty at Wiederholt's for Tuesday night. With the holiday it was busy, but I didn't mind coming in with the old people at five. The hostess was thrilled to hear from me and was happy to change my usual table for one to a much bigger one.

The next thing I needed to do was to send out a formal notification to the surrounding Packs of the Miesville Pack territory and leadership. Larry and I had decided that these needed to happen before we started any recruiting of new members; the Alphas wouldn't like it if they lost people to an Alpha they weren't aware of. I listed myself as Alpha, Mike & Anita as my Betas, and one adult and one juvenile member to round out the minimum number. My Pack territory would be centered on my eighty acres of land south of Miesville. Every Pack was allowed a 'buffer zone' they could control around their owned property, up to two miles in every direction. Where this crossed the buffer of other Packs, the difference was split.

I still had the map from when I was Alpha. My property anchored the western edge of the territory, while most of the homes and land were farther east along the Cannon River Valley. Since I was no longer in that Pack, my area was no longer claimed by them. I'd verified this by runs along the County and State lands in the river valley, and set up my own boundary markers the old fashioned way.

I peed on the trees and rocks along the new border.

I used my computer and a satellite map to mark out the territory and the buffer, which included the Miesville Ravine and the north side of the Cannon River. Printing out copies, I addressed them to the Alphas of the five closest Packs and put them out in the mail. It would be after the New Year by the time they arrived, which worked for me. There was not going to be any hiding of my Pack or of Vicki now that she had shifted. Her scent was much stronger now. Anyone in the same room, or passing her on the street, would know exactly what she was with a sniff.