Endangered Species

We gave Melanie enough time to come up for air. “We should take this inside,” I said.

“MINE,” she responded. “I’m Melanie Chapman, acting Luna of the Renfro Pack.”

He looked confused, his eyes flicking between Melanie and me. “The Luna is the Alpha’s mate, right? Are you two, you know, a pair?”

“Nope. I’m acting Luna, just like I was for my brother before he found his mate in Angela. With him gone, Angela is Alpha, and I help her out. You’re my mate, so we’ll have to figure out how all this works after seeing how powerful your wolf is.”

The Colonel was shocked. “You’re my mate? How?”

Melanie stayed wrapped around him like a lemur, with her nose pressed to his neck as she took in his scent. “The Moon Goddess determines mates,” she replied. “Your scent tells me you are mine. What do you feel?”

“Tingles. It’s weird. It’s like you shocking me, but in a nice way.” He looked into her eyes for ten seconds, his face a mask of confusion. Melanie was looking for something, a sign he felt the same. Colonel Tester pushed her back, lifting her from him under the shoulders and setting her back on her feet. Melanie looked crushed, wondering if his rejection was coming. He didn’t let go of her hand as he tried to sort his feelings. “This… it’s unexpected. I didn’t expect it.”

He looked down at his left hand, where a white silver wedding band remained. “You’re married?” Melanie’s face fell, her wolf flashing in her eyes. Her wolf wouldn’t hesitate to remove the competition.

“She died on the first day,” the Colonel replied sadly. “She went out to check on the other wives in base housing, stopping only when the blindness hit. I found her after dark when we were allowed to leave the basement. I couldn’t protect her,” he confessed.

“You will never be alone again,” Melanie promised.

In the meantime, the other staff members in the command vehicle exited. I snorted as I realized these three men and one woman were the only humans within miles, and the senior one might take the bite tonight.

He wasn’t the only one. When the Betas led me into the standing-room-only dining hall, new mates were everywhere. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked; the Moon Goddess was with me, and she wanted this Pack to succeed. The numbers worked out, with hundreds of newly-turned males coming inside to meet hundreds of newly-turned and single female wolves. The General tried to stack the deck to keep mates from occurring, sending two gay men and one lesbian. Amazingly enough, they found their same-sex mates as well.

In all, almost nine dozen new mated pairs matched up that night. When the matings occurred between wolves, things progressed quickly. Some of them didn’t even make it to a room, completing their matings in full view of the Pack. My wolf laughed at my thoughts about this; wolves knew public sex and nudity were part of Pack life. After all, we were naked coming in and out of our shifts, and no one would look wrong at a mated wolf. The new mates didn’t care; they were lost in each other, their minds excluding everything around them.

The only ones who took longer were the four humans. I called them to the head table, where my existing and new Betas sat for lunch. They would have to take the change before mating, but two of them already showed bites. The Colonel and the female Captain still had clean necks, but their mates were at their sides. I smiled as I looked around the room; for now, we were all one Pack. If some left tonight or tomorrow, I’d still have hundreds of wolves under my command.

Melanie was tucked under the Colonel’s arm, leaning in for the occasional kiss or sniff. “I bet you didn’t expect to find a mate tonight,” I teased him.

General Payne figured his loss was too fresh to move on. That was why he got picked to command the base, foolishly assuming Luna wouldn’t use him. “I’m not complaining,” he said with a smile, “But we’ve got big problems.”

“Why is that?”

He looked around the room. “The General is using you and your people, Alpha. That agreement you made with him? It’s worth nothing. He’s already moving against your, I mean OUR, kind.”

Everyone at the head table was listening to him now. I started sharing the conversation with the rest of the Pack over the link. “You better start at the beginning, Colonel.”

“Mark, please. I’ll be in your Pack, so calling me Colonel won’t be right.” I nodded at that. “I’ll begin by saying there is no President,” he told me.

“What about the line of succession?” I’d learned this in high school civics. After the Vice President came the Speaker of the House, President Pro Tem of the Senate, Secretary of State, and the other fourteen Cabinet secretaries.

“Hell, I don’t know, Angela. We’ve had zero communications with anyone east of the Rockies. If there is a President, he’s not talking to us. NORAD and Northern Command, both in Colorado, are the highest-level commands we’ve reached. There are a few others, some National Guard bases in Montana and Utah, but they don’t mean shit.”

“Why?”

“It’s one thing to talk into a radio, but quite another to have operational forces,” he explained. “It’s a miracle we saved as many people at Lewis-McChord as we did. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we only have two weeks of food left for them.” I didn’t know that. “We’ve got a shitload of planes and vehicles that don’t work, and he’s done nothing to prepare for that. Then he gets orders to take Kitsap back, despite perhaps a thousand dug-in werewolves.”

“Did Nothern Command know about werewolves?”

“They do now. You aren’t the only surviving Packs out there. The National Guard up in Montana has a working helicopter. The Packs up there have taken over completely, turning hundreds of civilians into werewolves. The Alphas and their Council run those towns, and they don’t accept the authority of the United States Military.”

Melanie snorted. “What did they do, walk in and say they were in charge?”

“Yep. The Guard Colonel flew in and informed the Alphas that they were now under Martial Law. He demanded they turn over their supplies and working vehicles.” The Pack started laughing at that. “One of the Pack members told them to fuck off; the Packs had helped them, while the military just wanted to take their stuff. They barely made it out of there alive.”

I thought about this. “There’s an entire region of the United States under Pack control, and the Generals don’t like it.”

“They see it as insurrection. Add in a Pack wiping out an entire submarine base, and they aren’t feeling the love for your kind.”

I was starting to feel queasy. “I made a deal with the General! I saved his men!”

Mark reached out for my hand. “It was clear that his troops couldn’t win against Kitsap. You offered to do it for him, using only dying or useless personnel. If it turned into a firefight, it was werewolves killing werewolves. In their mind, it didn’t matter who won. They were always planning to nuke the base to wipe out our kind. You collecting them in one place was a bonus. Now they have one more thing to figure out, and we’re all dead.”

“What is that?”

“The Generals can’t launch a nuclear attack just yet. Malmstrom ballistic missile base in Montana and the Maine remains operational. They were underground or underwater and designed to survive nuclear attacks. Northern Command has the missile launch codes. They don’t have the targeting data needed to program the missiles. After all, we didn’t have a contingency made up to nuke ourselves. They are working on it and expect to have it in the next day or two.”

This shit was getting worse by the minute. “What were you sent here to do? Die?”

He nodded. “I was to keep all the werewolves here if you took the base. If not, I’d leave your surviving forces close enough to die in the explosion. Two of my aides were to return tonight to Fort Lewis with an update on the attack.”

I didn’t know what to say. “So, in conclusion, the military is planning to nuke this base to the stone age, and we’re supposed to sit here and wait for the big bang?”

He nodded.

Fuck.