Dominant Species Ch. 34-36

"He's in the Clinic." She looked back at the building surrounded by townspeople. "He's staying. He plans to walk out to try to stop Alpha Richard, if that doesn't work the humans will stop them."

Rachel's face paled. "It will be a massacre! Wolves can't fight against rifles!"

"Yes, it will be."

She looked at the young girl with concern. "What about Reggie? Have you heard from him?"

"Nothing, he won't answer. Why? Is he all right?"

"I don't know, Josi. He was going to challenge the Alpha." She looked around. "If the Pack comes, that means he lost. Marcus asked me to make sure you were safe, so get in." She opened the door and motioned for her.

"No." Josi's face was set. "They need me here. You go on, I'll be all right."

"No, YOU go." Rachel grabbed the girl by the shoulders. "It's MY mate who is in trouble here. If he stays, I stay with him. I need you to take these people up to North Fork and wait for me there."

The argument went back and forth until Silvia had heard enough. "STOP IT!" She looked at them. "Both of you stay. We have time, it doesn't take that long to get there. We will go to the other end of town, if you aren't there to meet us by the time the moon is high, we'll leave. It's not like we're going to get lost, it's the next town up."

The two women nodded to each other, then to Silvia. "I'll be back soon," said Rachel to Raven and the others.

Josi took up an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent. "I'LL BE BAACK." They smiled as the car pulled away. "Come on, Marcus is going to be pissed and I need you to calm him down."

She was right, on both counts, but it was too late. They let him think the others were already gone for North Fork so he couldn't force them to leave. He didn't have any better luck with his desire to keep them out of the fight, as Josi took up a defensive position on the street corner and Rachel wouldn't let him go anywhere without her.

It didn't take long until the wolves arrived. Running in a single column, they came into town and spread out into a line, surrounding the clinic on two sides. Their sharp vision picked up the townspeople on the roofs and in the yard, and they were in no hurry to get killed.

"Marcus, what do you want us to do?" Deputy Stevens had runners going between their command post and the various buildings and groups, and was receiving regular reports on what they saw.

"I'm going out there. Hold fire unless they attack you." He took off his rifle and vest, then unbuckled his gun belt and left it on the table. He looked over in shock as Rachel's rifle and pistol were set down too. "Stay here, baby. Please."

"No." She put her hands on his cheeks. "We get through this together, or we go to the moon together." Her eyes dared him to disagree, but every mated male knew the look she gave him. And no man was immune from it.

Dropping his shoulders, he took her hand in his and led her out the door. He looked around at the people on the rooftops, silently reminding them of his orders. They started walking towards the parking lot as two wolves trotted forward from the trees. One held a white shirt in its mouth and was waving it; he recognized the two wolves coming his way, and looked at Rachel with trepidation.

It wasn't Reggie.

When they were across the road from them, they ducked behind some shrubs and shifted. Lisa came out with the shirt covering her to her knees, then Richard walked out next to her.

Marcus looked Richard in the eye. "Good evening, Alpha."

Richard shrugged. "I'm not the Alpha now, Marcus. Lisa is."

Marcus' jaw dropped, while Rachel squealed with happiness. "Mom! You found a way!" She rushed forward to embrace her mother, and was almost there when the first shot rang across the open space.

"DIE DEMONS!" More shots rang out from a building to Marcus' right.

Rachel dropped to the ground holding her leg, while Richard pulled Lisa to him and turned to run for cover. The shots followed him, one, two, three into his broad back as he ran. He pushed her behind a stalled vehicle as he fell to his knees.

Marcus had reacted instantly to the shots, running across the road and scooping Rachel up in his arms. He jumped the sidewalk just in time to see the shot that took his father in law's head off, splattering them both with blood and gore. He kept going, rolling behind the car until they were next to his mother in law.

A single shot rang out, this one was not at them, they could hear it hit and then the sound of a body hitting the sidewalk.

"CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!" The Deputy's voice yelled out from the clinic.

Marcus could hear the howls and the sounds of the wolves running to their Alpha. He looked over at Lisa, she was in shock and her eyes were wide open and unfocused. "MOM!" She didn't respond.

"MOM! Tell them to retreat!" She didn't move.

He looked back to see Deputy Stevens with the air horn raised above his head. "NO! CEASE FIRE!"

The wolves were closing in fast. "MOM! Stop them NOW!"

She shook her head and looked at him.

Then her eyes rolled back and she fell to the side.

He grabbed her, and his hand went into the mess of an exit wound below her shoulder blade. He had seen this before, he knew there was no surviving a shot through the heart. "MOM!" He pulled her to him as the bond snapped in death.

The pain hit the entire Pack, some stumbled and many howled, their fury forward as they moved to avenge their Alphas.

Marcus let her go, then crawled over to where Rachel was lying on the grass, clutching her thigh in pain. Looking past her, he saw the Pack was almost on them. Their wolves were in control, they were a killing machine of frightening efficiency as they thundered closer. He looked back behind him, the Deputy was running for the cover of their fighting positions, finger on the air horn as he prepared to unleash hell on the Pack as soon as he was out of the way.

"STOP!" The command almost shook the ground, the power behind it was a thing to behold. The Pack responded instantly, it was as if their legs no longer worked. They fell to the ground instantly, exposing their necks in submission as the Alpha command blasted their ears and their minds at once. Marcus couldn't feel it because he was no longer Pack, and neither did Rachel, but every other wolf did. It was the kind of raw Alpha power they had not seen before, and it came from a most unlikely source.

Josi stepped forward, dropping her rifle to the ground as she walked away from the clinic. She was almost regal in bearing, her nascent wolf had surged forward with the transfer of the Alpha position. Her eyes were glowing brightly as she looked at her Pack; meeting each of their eyes, she took in their submission to her as they accepted her as their leader. When it was done, she ordered them to retreat and sit in ranks farther back.

As the wolves moved away to defuse tensions, Josi turned her attention to the humans. "WE ARE BETTER PEOPLE THAN THIS," she thundered. "THERE WILL BE NO KILLING TONIGHT. WE WILL BURY THIS CONFLICT WITH THOSE WHO HAVE DIED OVER IT TONIGHT."

"What about them? How can we trust the wolves," one of the men shouted, his question quickly seconded by others.

"How can they trust you?" Josi looked over the people who moments before had been ready to wipe out those she now considered her family. "Haven't enough of our friends and neighbors died already? There is nothing to be gained by fighting each other. Life will give us enough challenges on its own. Now, put down your weapons and come down here." Turning to the Pack, she glared at them. "Take Richard and Lisa home and prepare them to meet the Moon tonight."

"Luna? How many men should I leave to protect you?"

Josi smiled. "I don't need protection, Ron." She looked at her Beta. "Where is Reggie? I expected to see him."

"He's still sleeping it off, Luna. Lisa drugged him last night to prevent him from challenging his father, then SHE challenged him. Richard ceded the Alpha position to her rather than fight her, that is why we were coming her to help the humans, not kill them. She risked her life for them."

A tear escape Josi's ear for the mother in law she barely met. "Return home, Beta. I will be back before dawn."

"Yes Luna." He called forward a dozen men who shifted, one of the wolves at the back had run forward with shorts so they didn't freak out the humans too much. The men gently lifted the bodies of the former Alpha pair and carried them off.

Josi turned to Marcus, who had placed his shirt over Rachel's leg wound and was tightening a belt around it. Deputy Stevens had already directed their medics out with a stretcher, and she was loaded up and on her way into the clinic within minutes. Marcus ran ahead to prep for surgery, although she would heal quickly from the wound, blood loss could still kill her if her artery was not repaired.

When the area was clear, Josi turned and waved the humans over to the picnic area on the dried out lawn. Deputy Stevens sat down across from her as her wolf finally retreated, her eyes returning to normal. "What the hell was all that, Josi?"

"My mate is Reggie, and he is the new Alpha- the new leader- of our Pack. As I am his mate, the power and authority of that position passed to me as well. It's a shock to me, my wolf wasn't supposed to come out yet, I was just bitten last night and I haven't even had the fevers yet." She pulled down her shirt and showed off the mating bite. "All of the sudden my mind was full of power, full of links to the Pack. I didn't know what was happening, but my wolf did."

He nodded slowly. "It's a good thing too." He looked around, many of the people were still nervous, some were shaking as the adrenaline dump starter to wear off. "My real question is why? Why did Richard hate us so much he was willing to kill us?"

Josi held up her hand, she closed her eyes and entered the Pack bond. When the question was asked, Elder Diane was the one to answer.

When she had finished talking over the link, Josi opened her eyes again. "Richard has never trusted humans, even as he had to live around and among them. When he was ten, he was out with his parents and some other Pack members and friends. They were learning to track and hunt, running through the woods, when a shot rang out. His mother dropped instantly, the bullet hit her in the front shoulder. The wolves scattered, Richard hid in a thicket, and he watched his Mom bleed into the ground as the rest of the Pack surrounded and killed the hunter who did it."

"Louie Baskett?"

"Yes. Louie was a poacher, hunting of wolves was illegal but there was a black market for pelts."

One of the older townspeople spoke up. "I remember that, they blamed it on a bear, but his family knew it was wolves. When Tristan Baskett learned that werewolves were real, he put it together. That's why he shot them tonight, he was getting revenge." He looked over to where a few men were picking up his body and carrying it to the pyre. "Who stopped him?"

"I did." Josi looked up, she didn't regret killing the third person in two days any more than the first two, and her wolf was in full agreement. "Richard moved on, he never let on how much he blamed humans and not just the hunter. He was good at hiding his true feelings, even from his own family. It was only in the last day we learned of his hatred and mistrust, not just of humans but of werewolves who had been turned. He considered Rachel to have a mate who wasn't worthy of her in Marcus, and he helped guide him into being a doctor because he didn't think he was strong enough to be a true son to him." She paused and another tear escaped. "When he found out his son was mated to me, a young and weak human in his eyes, he realized that his line would be forever polluted by the human influence from then on out."

"Are all Packs like this?"

"No, Deputy, most don't differentiate between turned and born wolves. We believe our mate is chosen by the Moon Goddess herself, and how could she make a mistake?" She looked at the men and then looked down. "Richard was furious that Marcus broke his command and turned all those people, even though it would save them. I'm sure Marcus told you about the dangers of new turns?"

"Yes," said the Deputy, "He said that without a mate or Alpha the wolf becomes unstable and can go crazy."

"There is that, but Richard was also paranoid. Our Pack isn't huge, if all the people Marcus bites make it through the change, you will be more than twice the size of ours. Richard didn't like that threat coming up in what he considered his territory, so he moved to wipe it out before they became wolves." She looked around at their faces, she could see the gears turning. "I've talked to Reggie about this already, we don't look at it the same way. We see you as friends, neighbors, coworkers- and for a bunch of you, new Pack members. We are determined to make this work, and to live side by side with our human friends."

Deputy Stevens reached across and offered his hand, she shook it with a smile. "I'd much rather do that than fight, Josi. We need to recognize what we have in each other, if we hadn't had wolves around we'd be burning another hundred people tonight. We owe Marcus for saving our family members and friends."

"And if we didn't have humans, we'd lose something we really need- new blood and ideas. The Goddess created us to live with the humans, not in place of them. As a former human, I'd rather we work together."

At the thought of 'former humans' her face fell. "SHIT! Abigail and Silvia are still waiting for me on the north end of town." She stood and looked around. "I have to get them and return home, we have a lot to do. I'd like to meet again tomorrow night, and come to agreement on how we can cooperate and live together from this night forward. Agreed?"

"Agreed. We can meet here two hours after sunset." Deputy Stevens gave her a quick hug. "You did a good thing here today, kid."

"Alpha." Her eyes flashed in irritation. "I will send more people late tonight, to help those undergoing the turn with the fever. Reggie will come in my place tomorrow night, as I'll be undergoing the turn as well. Good luck, my friend."

She made her way through the crowd and into the clinic; Marcus was just coming out of the treatment room and was tossing the disposable gown away, then wiping the blood off his body with a towel. He felt her Alpha aura approaching before he smelled her. He turned and kneeled, exposing his neck to her. "Alpha Josi, I'm sorry it came to this."

She put her hand on his chin, lifting it to her. "I am too, I am sorry for your loss. Is Rachel all right?"

"Yes," he smiled. "She won't be walking for a day but it should heal without permanent damage."

"That's good. A Pack needs a good doctor for times such as these. Have you had enough of the rogue life, Marcus?"

"I have, Alpha."

Her wolf pushed forward again, and her canines started to elongate. She used one to slice her palm open as Marcus did the same. They clasped their hands together as Marcus pledged his loyalty to their Pack, then when Josi accepted him they felt a zing through their hands and the bond snapped into place. Marcus sat down, his wolf pleased to be back. "And Rachel?"

"When she's ready. I need to get the rest of the humans and return home. I need you, Beta, to stay here and look over our new Pack members. I'll send Reggie up, he can supervise the turns after we send our parents away."

Marcus sighed. "Rachel and I should be there."

"I know, Marcus, but this can't be postponed, it's tradition to burn them when the moon is high. You concentrate on making her relax and heal."

Marcus laughed. "Yeah, that won't work. You know how they say doctors are the worst patients? Well, nurses with doctor mates aren't much better."

Josi gave him a quick hug. "I'm glad you're back, Marcus." She turned and walked out the front doors of the clinic, turning north and walking quickly through the small town. She smiled as she felt Reggie awaken, his love pushing through the bond as the Alpha power rested with him. "Good morning, my love. Sleep well?"

"Josi? Where are you? What's going on?"

"So many questions." She filled him in on what had happened since his Mom hit him with the sedative.

"Holy shit, Josi."

"I know, my love. I don't know if we'll ever know all the answers, but there is one that has been bothering me all night."

"What's that, love?"

"If I scratch you just right, can I get your back leg to whap up and down on the floor really fast?"