Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 11

Oooh - so that was how you did it.

She tried to repeat the sensation again, a few times, but it was difficult with nothing to push against.

Mac shared an image of her shrieking and shrinking away from him: he'd been in loup form, soaking wet, and shaking his fur all over her back in the forest when she'd been on heat.

That one was a lot easier to shove away, hard, and she felt him laughing at her indignation. She pushed stubbornly again, and the sound of him in her head faded, but wasn't totally extinguished.

Well done.

She thrust the compliment away as quickly as she could.

Give it a rest now, Gem. Training the mind is exhausting, and requires little and ofte -.

That one she managed to push away before he finished the sentence. She didn't even hear the end of the last word. She felt smug, although her temples were aching painfully. Not that she was going to tell Mac that.

You've learned the beginnings of how to shield, Gemma, not how to stop broadcasting. I can hear your smugness and feel your headache poundi -.

She pushed that away too, irritated, and felt the pain at her temples spike.

Her mate sighed, and her head echoed with silence.

Aaaw. Spoilsport, she complained.

He ignored that.

Hours later, after the sun had set and the blue, cloudless sky was darkening beyond the dusky silhouette of the forest, Gemma and Mac were loping easily in their four-legged forms up the steep side of yet another river valley. They had been running almost continuously since they left Fort Amicable, over a wilderness of wooded hills and across wide dales. Gemma was hoping that Mac would call a halt soon. Not that running in this guise wasn't as easy as walking as a human, but she was tired.

A welcome breeze curled around her panting form. Mac skidded to a halt, his head shooting up and ears springing alert. His nose lifted to scent the wind, a low growl sounding in the air.

What is it? she asked, watching the eerie, fearsome back-light fire in his eyes. His muscles tensed under the heavy, silken pelt while his nose twitched in the breeze.

Nigel, he replied brusquely. His black eyes glittered in challenge. Damn the wolf. This changes things: come on, Gemma.

The new pace that Mac set up the hill was punishing, and Gemma whined, falling back. She couldn't run at that speed. The Alpha spun, bounding back towards her with his eyes ablaze, and the sharp rebuke: Don't be lazy, sounded in her head as he nipped her sharply on the rump.

Ow! Not an aphrodisiac, this one. It was way too painful.

Gemma found that she was running back up the hill ahead of his sharp teeth and blazing eyes, smarting from the healing nick on her arse, and fuming inwardly. Damn Alpha! She waited indignantly for the rage to smother her so that she could turn on him, but there was no sign of it. By the time she realised that she'd have to attack the damn bossy-boots compos mentis, she'd already run half way up to the treeline, her limbs had warmed up to the new pace, and she begrudgingly admitted - internally, and very quietly because she was damned if she was going to let him hear this - that she evidently could run uphill at this pace. So maybe she had been being lazy. She preferred to think that the reason she had balked had just been unfamiliarity with her own stamina in wolf form.

It was interesting that she hadn't felt even a hint of the rage. She felt a touch of shame, now, that she had wanted to. Her mind tingled as she suddenly realised that the Don't be lazy hadn't been a mental order either. She was running fast, uphill, entirely under the prompting of her own mind. To avoid that nip. Just because she'd thought that she had to. But in reality, she was the one in control of her limbs.

Humph. Damn sneaky wolf.

They ran out into the dusky light above the trees.

Who's Nigel? she asked, mainly to distract herself from thoughts of how soft and cosy some of the thick stands of grass looked.

Mac ran up alongside her, keeping pace with her.

The African senshal who pronounced your sentence, he replied. He's a prime tracker, probably the best there is, and he taught me and uh - my brother all those tree-travelling tricks I used to mask our trail. They'll have slowed him down, but no more.

There was a faint tinge of guilt to his thoughts, and Gemma felt her blood running colder at the stark tension in Mac's tone. She could sense his uncertainty, doubt at being able to evade this hunter. Her heart lurched. Would the hunters kill him too, if they caught up with them? Maybe if he went back, apologised, turned her in, they would forgive him, be lenient to her wolf.

The look Mac shot at her burned with a furious: Don't you even suggest it.

Gemma blinked, feeling a different shiver running through her. Mac angry was oh so hot.

His ears twitched in amusement. You're supposed to find me scary, not attractive.

Oh, that too, she replied in an appeasing tone. Yeah right. She knew he could read the sincerity of her deep, non-existent fear. He nibbled her ear affectionately as they ran.

So what do we do about the hunt? she asked.

Improvise, replied her mate dryly. And meanwhile, keep running.

They settled down to a steady, fast lope. Over the rushing of the blood in her ears as they crested the hillside under the deepening dusk, Gemma could feel the increasing rise of tension in her mate.

The pursuit was gaining on them.

She tried to put on more speed, but heard Mac cautioning calmly, Steady, picchu. Better not to stumble. Her heart was beating faster and faster with the awareness increasing in her own fur. The feel of being hunted, prey, was setting her blood shivering.

To distract herself, she queried silently, What kind of a name is Nigel? He was African.

His real name's N'gula, responded her mate absently. He seemed to be listening intently to something she couldn't quite pick up. One year he took on a couple of cheeky, insubordinate students who called him Nigella, which he didn't object to until he discovered it was a girl's name.

Gemma snorted as she ran. She wasn't fooled by Mac referring to himself and his natál in the third person.

He taught the cheeky ruggare a signal lesson, but somehow the name Nigel stuck, her mate finished. Everyone calls him that now, including his pack.

There was deep affection twined through his thoughts. Gemma hoped very quietly, internally where he might not hear it, that the affection was mutual. Maybe Nigel would be lenient to Mac.

They ran down the next slope and toward another broad, grassy dale. The moon rose, bathing the river in silver light while they splashed through the belly-deep water as fast as they could. Gemma was breathing harshly as she pounded beside her mate up the steep wooded slope of the opposite hill, trembling from weariness and the slowly solidifying tension pulsing from Mac. A faint whisper of pursuit made her ears twitch. But what did she know? Maybe it was a damn owl or something.

Suddenly, deep in the dense woodland on the hillside, Mac halted and spun around, mind echoing with incredulous disbelief and worry: Who the hell? The sounds of a raging wolf fight broke out below them. Gemma also halted and listened, incredulous. Had one of the hunting pack turned on Nigel? Who was reckless enough to challenge a senshal? The distant snarls rolled from a multitude of wolf throats - more than one wolf was involved in the fighting.

Your pack? asked Gemma, amazed.

They're nowhere near here. And I wouldn't let them, Mac replied tersely. The unspoken thought echoed: it would be too dangerous.

They could see nothing through the thick pines, just hear the furious melee in the valley below, and Mac turned and streaked toward a short crag jutting out above the trees to their left. He bounded out onto the open pinnacle, stopping a foot from the sheer edge, standing staring while Gemma panted up behind his shoulder.

She also gazed disbelievingly down at the dusky shadows of movement just visible to her wolf eyes in the dark valley.

The hunting pack had been ambushed.

It had happened where she and Mac had forded the river, only minutes earlier. Gemma shuddered at the astounding sight of the twenty or so hunters being smothered under an angry sea of hundreds of wolves who were still pouring out of the trees and attacking the pursuers as they struggled to gain the bank. Even to her untrained eye she could see that the wolves defending their flight were taking advantage of the height of the river bank and the impedance of the water slowing the movements of the hunters. This was not an accidental encounter.

Male, female, old, young, the eyes of the defending wolves were gleaming with rage in the dusky light as they took down the pursuers, sets of them working together, three or four in some cases immobilising each powerful hunter on the grassy bank or in the shallows. Within minutes, only a few of the hunter wolves were still on their feet: those grouped around the huge, dappled senshal. Nigel had fought his way ashore, and was spinning like a whirlwind, hurling off each melee of attackers who tried to down him, his sparkling eyes gleaming as the last light caught them.

No sounds reached the watching pair, the fighting was too far away, but Mac kept flinching as he watched the fray centred around the senshal, whining softly, fur shuddering. His alert white ruff was haloed in the soft moonlight.

No!

Gemma kept hearing his injunctions in her head, but they weren't aimed at her.

Don't! Idiots! Not like that! Not Nigel!

Quivering with tension, the couple witnessed the increasing ferocity below. The wolves defending the shore were implacable; they were not going to move. Yet the senshal was unstoppable. Currently he was holding back his strength, trying not to maim, warning his opponents to just give it up. But he was having to gently up the stakes of each warning. And the stranger wolves were still refusing to budge. So in turn, Nigel was getting more tangibly insistent that they do so, more forceful.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that the muscular senshal would have to kill the defenders to get past.

Watching that graceful, contained power as he flung his attackers off him and slowly gained ground toward the hillside, there was no doubt in Gemma's mind that Nigel could kill the strangers. Easily. Maybe the hundreds of them would overpower him in the end, but at the moment the wolves defending their retreat were also trying to just stop the hunters, not hurt them. Neither side wanted to kill. But neither would give up, either.

Sickness began to pool in her stomach as black shining patches blossomed on the fur of some of the intractable attackers surrounding the senshal. Why was this happening? Who were they? What was going on?

A harsh huff of impatience snapped out beside her, and Gemma felt the wind of her mate springing past her to land at the base of their viewing rock and sprint off into the trees. Back down the hill.

Mac! she called.

Keep heading south.

She was already springing after him when the command caught her mid-air, causing her muscles to seize so that she landed heavily and rolled uncontrollably down the steep bank to thud against a tree. Her mind blanked with fear of what Mac was running into, swiftly smothered by rage that he had dared to order her away. Blackness swamped her senses.

Gemma came out of the berserker rage to discover, sheepishly, and with a little remorse, that the poor tree no longer had any bark on this side, within claw height. Such a stupid, pointless thing to do. Her jaws and right paw ached, and she switched to human to pull a splinter out from between her teeth. Eugh. Then she winced as her bare foot landed on a sharp piece of broken branch, and realised that she was instinctively, obediently, walking south. Without thinking. Naked. Damn him. She switched back to her four-legged form, and shivered as she heard a sudden howl of challenge echoing up from the trees below. She knew his voice.

Mac.

No.

She'd seen Nigel fighting. And that had been when he was withholding his strength.

Now her mate was fighting the senshal. Fighting that ferocious, spinning, whirling devil she'd watched flinging off hordes of attackers. She could tell Mac was engaged with Nigel from the pounding of her heart in her chest, the shuddering blood in her veins. She felt sick. The sense of her mate within her mind had narrowed to a hairsbreadth, a barely noticeable, tenuous thread, returning no sense or feeling, just there. Only just.

Gemma felt a howl rising in her own throat, but didn't dare release the anguish. She didn't dare to distract him. Black spots swam again in front of her eyes, and she felt that she would almost welcome the blank oblivion, heart despairing while her feet obediently pulled her further and further from her beloved wolf.

Please, let him be safe, please.

A lurch in her stomach, and she circled, heart burning, to try and see, try to follow. He'd gone that way. Even while she stared white-faced down the hillside after him, the view blotted by the thick trees, somehow she found her feet had turned again and she was heading south, away from him.

No.

Tears were running down her face while the ferocious snarls and occasional yelps echoed up from the valley floor, assailing her ears. The clench of terror in her heart again allowed her to force her feet to circle, so she could peer unseeingly down through the dense forest. But her feet moved on without her guidance, drawing her away, obedient to his last order.

Not his last, no, please not.

The sickness lurched further up into her throat, and she found that she was back human, her arms wrapped so tightly around her midriff that she could barely breathe, holding on, trying to hold herself together. She didn't want to remember that effortless blur of Nigel fighting. Her gasping breaths sounded loud in her own ears.

The valley had fallen silent.

Mac? She panicked

I'm fine, picchu. Nigel has retreated.

Mac's mind was stunned, echoing in shock and fury while he sprinted back up towards her again.

Then: Why aren't you running? he demanded brusquely.

The rebuke, coupled with the splintering relief from the terror shuddering through her set her mind spinning in incoherent fury, and Gemma turned and leapt for his throat, lycan, claws extended, just as her mate burst from the trees behind her.

She landed with a jarring impact on her back underneath him, her throat pinned with a palm to the floor. She shuddered to the terse words in her head, the blank rage flicking back from her eyes: We haven't the time for this, Gem. Either get running or accept orders. Mac's mind was churning with sadness, bitterness, intense rage and revulsion under a coating of shock. Deepest was a dark, stark anguish fused through every pore of him.

What? Where had those feelings come from? The rage in Gemma's head quivered outside the rising worry for her wolfmate.

Those were ex-Grey wolves. He answered the terse question in Gemma's mind succinctly, flinging up a shield around his raging emotions, blocking them from her.

Gemma's heart clenched, the berserk fury subsiding further. She had caught a memory from Mac, of the look she remembered in Ada's eyes. And Anne's. The bleak, hopeless, misery and self-loathing. Anger echoed through her, spiking as she realised what had so infuriated and upset Mac. Why his emotions were writhing.

What Nicolas Grey had done to his pack was not over simply because they had been freed.

She found herself loping as a loup again beside her mate up the hillside. Shock was rising through the anger: ex-Grey wolves? Her brain was churning worriedly. What were they doing here? Why had they attacked Nigel? Surely they would get into trouble for attacking a senshal? But what were they doing here?

They don't care what the senshal think. Mac answered bitterly. Then he seemed to force himself to relax, his mind soothed over hers, and he pulled himself together enough to explain further, albeit very succinctly.

The ex-Greys had been brought into the Fealden range to get out of the city, meet the council at Fort Amicable and amalgamate into other packs. However, most were too deeply scarred to circle, the wolf term for changing packs, and they were holding together as a leaderless pack, refusing outside help and seeing pity on every side. Pity was anathema to a wolf.

Gemma could feel Mac's deep bitterness, he couldn't entirely hide it from her. He could understand why the ex-Greys were not ready to join other packs, did not wish to circle. The damaged wolves could not bear the thought of having an Alpha have any hold over them. And they were revolted and deeply ashamed at the idea of letting anyone close enough to read what had been done to them by Grey.

Eventually, after the ex-Greys had refused offers from all the Alphas present, Fealden had insisted to the council that they just be given space in the remote forests here, to find some peace and just - enjoy being wolves, as far as they could.

That is one of the things that the senshal are worried about, Mac added. A pack of nearly a thousand renegade, ungoverned wolves suddenly loose in the Eastern ranges. Many of whom have learned some very bad ways of being a wolf.

Mac was worried too. Something about that fight had deeply unsettled him.

The pair of them ran on silently, side-by-side in the moonlight. Gemma's mind was echoing with sadness for the ex-Grey wolves. She could feel Mac brooding darkly beside her.

No-one could understand why they didn't circle from Grey, announced Mac suddenly. At least those without blood-ties. He wasn't even an Alpha. He should not have had a pack, not considering what he was doing with them. To them.

Mac's mind creased in pain, and he slammed a lid on his thoughts. But a low growl escaped, and then the raw, anguished stream of thought that was plaguing him, what he had just seen: We thought they must have been to some degree complicit. But they could not escape.

How do you know? asked Gemma. But her mate was too taken up with his own churning thoughts to answer.

A wolf can always circle, that freedom is a fundamental of wolf life, wolf society, our whole culture, civilisation. Our abilities. I was suspicious, but I didn't expect this. An adult wolf chooses his or her Alpha, there is no way of holding one. Any wolf is free to leave at any time, except during the meld. And an Alpha is only an Alpha because of his pack. If he loses their support, he is just another powerful wolf. How the hell did Grey force them to do his bidding? Force his will on them? It is impossible - a powerful wolf can break or stop a weaker, yes, but not bind one to his will.

Gemma's mind was swamped in sarcastic repudiation, echoing with the bitter memory of the look of hopeless, tear-drenched, wordless pleading in Anne's eyes while she had bent under the rape of the security guard, unable to disobey the order given by Nicolas Grey.

Mac slammed his shields up against the image, wincing so hard that he stumbled.

That is impossible, he howled. It is impossible to coerce a wolf, outside the meld, and the meld is built from trust: you cannot force it on a wolf.