Just a Rogue

Amelia

Dom and I are up early, because apparently if we don’t have sex before we go to sleep, we just do it in our dreams all night. It’s so surreal. It feels realer than a dream, more lucid, but it shifts around the way that dreams do. More erratically, though, and I am starting to think that his dreams are infiltrating mine, and mine are fighting back and getting into his. We are both asleep and dreaming, but battling for control, and it is so vivid and feels so tangible, as much as it did while he was napping and I was awake.

It finally wakes me up before dawn, and I realize that I am writhing on the bed, and that my own hand is on me, rubbing hard against my lady parts, and I am panting and ready to come. I look over at him, and his eyes are closed but he is gasping and moving, still lost in the dream, and I don’t even stop for one second to think about what I am doing before I am grabbing him.

He awakens with a gasp, figures out what is going on, and instantly plunges himself right inside of me. Exactly what I wanted.

We both come almost immediately and collapse together. When he can speak just a little, he says, “Best alarm clock ever. Let’s patent this. We’ll be millionaires.”

I giggle against his chest. “Won’t work. It only works with you, and I’m not sharing.”

“Me neither,” he says, and I feel his hand moving in my hair, his fingers threading through the strands. “Um, were you dreaming too that time? Or was it all just me again?”

“I think it was both of us,” I say, and would love nothing more than to try to drift back off to sleep together and try again. But I know that the overnight crew will have data about what’s happening in the cave, and we need to get up there soon.

“I know,” he whispers, having heard my thoughts again. “But it’s a whole new day, and I think you promised me a morning shower first.”

Oh, yes.

Ruby

Landon finishes with me quickly and grunts out, “You can go.” It’s the one nice thing about Landon. He always wants to sleep alone, which suits me perfectly fine.

So I am able to get back to my own sleeping area, towards the back of the cave, and wrap up in my blanket to sleep. Well, to rest, anyway. I’m not sleeping tonight.

My head is too full of plans. How am I going to get to that trailhead? It would have been easier if I knew about this while we were running as wolves, I could have just vanished, running ahead of everyone else until I was too far away for them to catch me. But now I’m stuck here in the cave. Maybe I can try to just make a break for it in the morning when I go outside to pee. Will I have the chance when nobody is watching?

It worries me, to leave Corinne and Lynette and Nova, and even Grace, behind. But I don’t think that my staying would help them. If they follow Corinne’s instructions, and submit when the pack attacks, they should be fine. I have been holding off on leaving for a long time, partially because I didn’t want to leave my sisters, but this is the time. Xavier’s rogue pack is ending and I want to make it out alive.

I must drift off to sleep, because suddenly I am awakened by Xavier’s voice yelling, “Hey!”

I sit up quickly, on alert. What is wrong?

Xavier is standing, staring around, and Corinne is sitting at his feet, looking fearfully up at him. It looks like everyone is sitting up, climbing to their feet, wondering what the problem is. I look around, and I think I see. The guys who left last night to go into Arcata aren’t back.

No, wait, one of them is. So where are Wyatt and Blake and Finn?

That’s what Xavier wants to know. “Seth!” he barks. “Report!”

Seth immediately steps over to Xavier, and Corinne takes the opportunity to quickly dart away, coming back to where our places are at the back of the cave. She didn’t want to sit there with the two angry men looming over her.

“Wyatt and Blake and Finn bailed,” Seth tells our leader. “We all split up, and were supposed to rendezvous at midnight, and they never came back.”

Xavier glowers at him. “Did you track them?” he bites out furiously, but keeping his temper in check long enough to get all the information.

We are all gaping at the scene. Three of our number chose to leave last night?

Seth nods. “I waited half an hour past midnight, then I followed their scents. They had gone in different directions. Blake and Finn were together. They had gotten a mile or so away, wandering all over town, and I could tell they were following a pack scent. Then they had to have gotten into a car, their scents vanished at the curb on a side street.”

Xavier’s face is beet red, he is so angry. “They didn’t say anything to you about leaving?”

Seth sighs. “Not exactly, but I suppose I should have seen it coming. They complained in the car all the way down about not being rewarded with a female, and instead being assigned recon duty. And I know they’ve been unhappy for months. They’ve probably been planning to go off on their own for a long time now, this was just the opportunity to do it. They found a way to arrange a ride somehow.”

“What about Wyatt?” Xavier’s face seems to be inching towards purple. Who knows, maybe he’ll have a coronary and save us all a lot of trouble.

“It was the same. His scent vanished right where he had to have gotten into a car. I’m as surprised as you are that Wyatt was plotting to leave. I had no idea. I suppose he’s going to be the leader of their new rogue gang now.”

There is a heavy, sullen silence, in which we all wait in suspense for Xavier’s reaction. I half expect him to punch Seth right in the face. But instead he barks out “Men!” and stalks over to the cave entrance. They quickly follow him outside, leaving us she-wolves within.

We gather together at our spot along the back wall, just before the bend where the long tunnel leads towards the coast in darkness. I’m pleased to see that Lynette is looking much better, the wounds on her throat red and raw looking, but not bleeding, and she seems much stronger this morning. Hopefully Xavier will keep that damned collar off her today. She and Nova are sitting alert but silent, ready for whatever is about to unfold. I know Corinne told them too.

Grace looks stricken, and furious. “Those traitors!” she says angrily. “How could they betray Xavier like that, after everything he has done for them! He kept them alive, fed them, gave them everything they needed! Then they run away as soon as things get the least bit difficult?” She is so salty that the three men abandoned our group.

Corinne softly asks, “Difficult? What has been happening, while I was gone?” It sounds like she doesn’t know about the scent-marked caves, but now that I think about it, she probably does. She knows more than any of the rest of us do, about everything.

We wait for Grace to answer. “We didn’t really get the chance to talk about it yesterday, sweetie,” she tells Corinne. Grace is treating her so gently, knowing that she is pregnant. “But we ran into a problem. The pack near here has somehow been tracking us, it seems, and four of the caves we tried to go to had been claimed by them. We are so lucky that they haven’t located and claimed this one.”

Corinne nods, eyes wide. “Are we going to be safe here?” she asks, and I realize that she has decided not to let Grace in on the secret. Not yet. And I agree with her decision. Grace couldn’t be trusted not to immediately tell Xavier about it. I hope that Corinne finds time at the end to warn Grace, to save her. She is blinded by her love for Xavier, but once she is away from him her life will be so much better.

If we all survive, and can all find a way to be granted some kind of amnesty by the pack, permission to remain in their territory, who knows? Maybe we can all get an apartment together, live within the human community, work as waitresses or something. Live a real life, in charge of our own destiny, not just as playthings for Xavier and his band of wolves.

Grace nods. “We’ll be safe,” she responds confidently. “Xavier will keep us safe.”

The men come back inside, looking grim. I have no idea what happened out there, but it is clear that Xavier has them all in line. Xavier announces, “Hugh is going into town for supplies. Everybody else is staying inside the cave.”

Grace gets up and goes over to talk quietly to Xavier. He shakes his head and then tells her something, and she comes back to us.

“Ruby,” she tells me, “I want you to go with Hugh into town. Corinne should be taking some prenatal vitamins to keep the baby healthy.”

Corinne’s eyes widen and start brimming with tears. She says, in a voice thick with emotion, “Thank you, Grace.”

Grace pats her hand. “We all want the best for the little one,” she says, then tells me, “you other girls will need some feminine hygiene products, I think. Our supply here is gone. You can go to the drugstore in town to get everything. Get the store brand, whatever is cheapest.”

“All right, Grace,” I say quietly, nodding my head, then I get up to go stand next to Hugh. Seth is giving him the car keys.

I’m trying to hide my sense of exultation. It’s a whole new day, and this is my chance. It is meant to be. Corinne gave me the warning, and now Grace is giving me the opportunity. All of my cooperation, all of my planning, is finally paying off. They trust me enough to let me go, even in the middle of everything that is happening, even after three of our members ran off. They don’t expect me to run off too. My heart is pounding with excitement.

I glance at Corinne before I climb out the cave entrance. She looks back at me calmly, with her clear gray eyes, and I know she is sending me all of her best wishes. As I send her all of mine. I hope we see each other again on the other end of all this.

I follow Hugh quietly out to the car, and sit next to him in the front seat while he drives to town. This is unusual, normally us females have to sit in the back while men take up the front seats. He is in the mood to converse, speculating about what Wyatt and the others are doing, where they are going to establish a territory of their own. I engage only enough to let him know that I agree with whatever he is saying. Men like that kind of thing, it keeps them amiable and off their guard.

As we approach town he tells me, “I have to go to the hardware store, then stock up on some groceries. Grace said you have to go to the drugstore too?”

“We need tampons and stuff,” I tell him, and am rewarded by his slight grimace. Men might want to use us, but they don’t want to deal with us. Pfsh.

“Fine,” he says, “you do that while I’m at the hardware store. We’ll meet at the car after.”

“All right,” I say, then add, “actually, would you mind terribly if I walked back? It would be so nice to get the chance to be out of the cave. I don’t know how long we’ll be in there afterwards.” It’s only a few miles, hopefully he won’t think it’s that big a deal.

“Um, all right,” he says. Again. I have demonstrated how trustworthy I am, and he believes it. “Don’t take too long, I don’t want Xavier to bite my head off.”

I look at him and tell him sincerely, “I’ll run. I’ll probably even beat you.”

He grins. “You’re on.”

I’d like him, if it wasn’t for, you know, all of this.

I walk into the drugstore after he parks, linger behind a display near the door until I see him move across the parking lot to the hardware store entrance, and dart back out the door.

I’m fast as a human, just as fast as I am as a wolf. I run, quickly getting back behind the shopping center and into a little alley that leads to another main road, and head east until I am leaving the town and entering the woods. I know just where I’m going. Wolves have an excellent sense of direction.

I run the couple of miles to the trailhead that Corinne told me about, my heart pounding more from anxiety than from exertion. Will there really be anybody there? Was she correct about this? Am I right to be trusting her? Will the pack wolves actually allow me to approach, or will they just attack me immediately?

I slow down as I arrive, trying to see the parking lot from behind some trees, watching to see what is happening before I come out into the open. There is a car parked there, and four people standing next to it, holding some kind of little devices in their hands. Nobody else is around.

It’s got to be them. I edge out past the tree I am hiding behind, and realize that they are already staring straight at me, almost as though they were expecting me. I can smell them. They’re pack wolves.