Urban Wolf

Fall Out

GLASGOW, MT

The rural airstrip used a small, pre-fabricated, two-room shed building for a terminal. Inside, the teenage attendant heard the drone of an incoming plane and turned to the two gentlemen waiting inside the only air-conditioned building for fifty miles for this arrival. Both were dressed in what she and her friends termed ‘working cowboy’: nice jeans with no patches or rips, a dress shirt with loose tie and a casual jacket.

They were obviously related, as their eyes were the same dark grey as a stormy mountain sky. The taller man was well-built with broad shoulders and bold features which alerted her that they must be part of the strange tribe from the other side of the county. She had never seen any of them up close, so she studied them to relate back to her friends.

Members of most Native American tribes in the area were dark complexioned, with black hair and chiseled features, but this tribe was different. Their coloring was dark, but all tended toward premature grey. All the men possessed the same shade of stormy grey eyes. The women were fair, with pale grey or blue eyes that always seemed to be studying their opponents. Their eyes tended to look right through a person, as if they were judging a man’s soul.

The tall man had brown hair with silver highlights betraying the tribal grey that marked him as too old. But his watch was very expensive, Tissot if she read the marking correctly. He was also well spoken, a sure sign he wasn’t originally from this forgotten corner of Montana or had left but returned for some unimaginable reason. The smaller gentleman was a carbon copy of his brother, except his hair was still a rich, deep brown. No silver or grey, yet.

“Will you need any help with luggage?” she inquired politely, as her eyes continued to rake up and down in appreciation of these two excellent members of the male species who were meeting the plane currently arriving from Atlanta. It was a welcome relief from the creepy oil men and cattle barons who normally flew in and out of the backwater airstrip on hunting expeditions away from their wives.

The taller of them smiled, the heat of his gaze sending wicked thoughts to the girl’s imagination. “No thanks, we’ve got it covered.” She shivered in delight as those thoughts ran boldly through her, and she leaned suggestively against the counter, but it was all to no avail. With no further notice of her feeble attempts at flirtation, they turned around and left.

The two men walked outside to await the small Gulfstream jet without a second glance.

Taking out her phone, she snapped a quick picture of their butts as they sauntered away.

“She’s still watching your ass, brother.” Drew Doran nudged his oldest brother in the arm. “I think she’d go for it, if you asked real nice. I mean, you did go all Alpha on her.”

Holden Doran replied bitterly. "Our baby sister just got mauled and you want me to apologize to a ticket clerk? I'd rather spend our time imagining all the ways I'm going to break Nick Petroza into a thousand small pieces."

Holden returned to watching the approaching jet and musing on his dilemma. The pack Alpha since his father’s death four years previous, he was proud to be known as the quiet voice of their family. He wasn’t sure leaving to work out this split with his best friend was the right thing to do, but humans were encroaching their land on all sides. It was time to move on, protect the secrets of their family. Nick had the resources to make their dreams reality.

His dark grey eyes were focused elsewhere as he thought again about the prospect of moving to new land further north. It wasn’t ideal, but gaining rich hunting grounds again would help them return to a life off the grid, safer from detection. Ever since Keele's human friend died three years ago in a car accident that left Keele with scars none of them could heal, the local human law enforcement had been keeping an eye on the pack and everything they did. They were getting close to learning the pack’s secret and Holden was running out of options.

Sending Keele to Nick had been an inspired move to continue stalling the police on her whereabouts, but in his wildest dreams he never imagined something like this could happen. Sure, every father told their sons horror stories of matings where the beast claimed a body, not a bride, but now it had happened to them. To her, to the sister least capable of handling an emotional betrayal of this level. He wasn't sure if killing his best friend once would satisfy the red haze that covered his vision and the slight tinge of pain he could feel from her injuries only served to deepen the rage.

When he'd received the call in the dead of night from Alex Petroza, it took quite a while for him to wake up enough to understand what had happened. Since that moment, since seeing the photos, he'd been using all his spare focus to not shift. Running through the mountains had always been his method of dealing with the larger problems in life. This however, was a problem he had to run straight toward.

He glanced at Drew, his youngest brother and perhaps the only member of the family still speaking to him after this fiasco. From a distance, Drew appeared in complete control of his emotions, but if he studied the younger Lycan's eyes, he could see the tint of red he knew must have covered his own. He recalled the pain that had distorted Drew's face as he'd looked through those pictures at the damage and knew he wouldn't be the only one heading into enemy territory looking for revenge.

After he'd gotten off the phone with Alex, Holden's next call was to the Assembly. Getting the Director on the phone usually took months of phone calls and emails. All that took was one picture – Keele's face and neck. The Director asked for three favors. First – that he handles this within the constraints of the Lawe. Second – that he have Keele brought to them for any emotional healing she required; and third that he not kill Nick.

Somehow, not killing Petroza doesn't seem likely.

***

Dmitri Petroza stood by the limo, waiting by the hanger as Holden and Drew Doran deplaned at the private airport just north of Atlanta. He'd known the Dorans for a long time and volunteered for errand boy after Nick received a scathing call from the Director of the Assembly informing them a meeting would be convened that afternoon to discuss what happened between Regnant Petroza and the Irish Princess. The representative was arriving later.

Anger and guilt roiled through Holden in visible waves, and for the first time the elder Petroza wondered how in the world he was supposed to offer an apology. How do you tell someone you're sorry for this type of accident? Dmitri was quickly realizing Nick was going to have to dig himself out of this hole. A nagging headache reared up behind his eyes. This was going to be a long day.

Holden approached first. "So, the son of a b***h couldn't even meet me at the airport? At least he has the decency to realize he's f****d up this time."

"And a wonderful day to you too," Dmitri replied. "I volunteered to be the messenger, as I believe I am the most able to deal with an angry Alpha."

"Don't try and defend what he's done, Dmitri. This is the 21st century. Mate mauling doesn't happen anymore. Not with civilized Lycans."

"Well, that's just the problem, isn't Holden? We aren't civilized. Not really. Our core is the beast and we must always acknowledge that. Nick has been running from his beast for over two years. He's the last person who should have been surprised this happened. You cannot deny and hide your true nature and then expect the beast to behave when presented with a true mate."

Drew Doran chimed into the conversation. "Alex told us the mating mark showed itself as soon as they shook hands. Have you ever seen such a thing, sir?"

The older Lycan shook his head. "Never, and you could feel the magic rising between them. Holden, I don't know what possessed you to challenge Nick's arrangement with Allyria, but you certainly pried the lid off of something different."

"Do we know where they are?"

"Alexi promised to keep within the pack's territory, to keep Nick from blasting himself and Keele with trackers and emotions she's not going to be able to handle for a while. That covers most of the state of Georgia and into the South Carolina low country. Nick promised he wouldn't send anyone after them unless it became an emergency."

Conspiratorially, he leaned toward the two brothers, "Personally, I checked Alexi's bank account last night. They are in Macon or were last night. He's using his debit card so I'll know where they are. Nick would never presume to check his brother's account, so another layer of protection for the two of them."

As they settled into the limo for the short ride toward Atlanta, Holden grunted, "I'm beginning to like Alexi more and more by the moment. At least he seems to have my sister's best interests at heart."

"Well, I'm afraid that Alexi took one look at Keele and that's all it took. He was enamored before they even left the airport, and when he found out she was for Nick, the old jealousies reared their heads and I didn't act fast enough to head this catastrophe off. I shouldn't have left Nick and Keele alone, but I figured they were adults. Never in my years have I ever heard of a reaction like this. We need a lore master from the council, but I'm afraid we're going to get a marshal instead."

"Sometimes I question the instincts and drives of our kind. I'm not sure humans have any better chances at love than we do I guess." Holden stared out the window at the urban sprawl that dominated in every direction. "God, how does Nick live in this nightmare? No wonder he snapped. The press of people, the abundance of noise and odors. It reminds me why I ran away all those years ago."

Dmitri narrowed his eyes at the brooding Alpha, young enough to be his son. "You ran away back to Montana to save your family, to save her if I remember correctly. Don't look down your nose at Nick for his choice of territory. You enjoyed life in the fast lane for many years. I know that for fact. Which brings me to the other question."

Holden raised red-rimmed eyes toward the older man. "What's that?"

"Why in God's name, after saving Keele would you send her away?"

***

Nick stared at his face in the bathroom mirror. The she-wolf had claws, he had to admit. And the black eye was probably the worst he'd had in many decades. It'd been more than twenty years since anyone dared raise a hand to him in anger. While he was furious at his bride, he was also extremely intrigued.

He brushed his teeth, took a shower, the same routine he did morning after morning, but today everything seemed different. There was a pall over everything he looked at, as if the light bulbs were burning out. As he dressed, a nagging feeling that he was missing something began to take shape in the back of his head. By the time he gained the living room he figured out what was wrong.

Keele was gone.

When Holden called and began screeching in his ear about attacking his sister, Nick had denied it all until he'd reached out to find her and the apartment was empty, her scent cold to the nose. In a panic, he'd looked over the entire floor, making the building security give him the confidential tapes for the hours from midnight to dawn for the private family areas. Filling his coffee cup from the pot, he scrolled through.

He saw Keele stumble from their bedroom, no – his bedroom. Saw the pain and fear in her eyes as Alexi met her in the living room, and the bloom of hope as he carried her in his arms down to his car and took her away.

The mug shattered in his hand, and he threw the shards at the wall as hard as he could. Just as he looked around for more things to throw, his father and brother next in-line entered the kitchen, ducking the mug handle on its way to meet the sheetrock. Peter raised one eyebrow and looked at the computer screen, now looping the security footage.

"Oh s**t, bro. What the hell have you done to us?"

Nick glared at his next in command. "Don't start with me, I've had a shitty twenty-four hours and I cannot take this crap coming from any more directions. Yes, there was a mating, but something happened. I'm not sure what, but things went wrong and now she's run off with our baby brother of all people and he called her brother and Thom Wheeler and the Director and by now half of the Pacific Northwest for all I know. I need to know how to fix this."

If Nick was ice, and Alex the fire, Peter was the balance beam between them. Brave enough to follow in his big brother's footsteps yet grounded enough to keep Alex from his own unending imagination. Peter was the fixer, and that's the role he stepped into now with ease and familiarity.

"First, we need to prepare for the Assembly rep. I'll do research and find out what might have happened to bring about such a violent encounter. There must be precedence, we all remember those stories our grandparents used to tell us. There's always a grain of truth in those tales. Second, and I cannot stress this enough Nicky, leave her alone until we can make a plan. According to this text Alexi sent me not too long ago she's stable and not red hot angry. Don't do anything to change that, please?"

"Why does everyone assume I'm going to contact her as soon as I'm alone?" Nick grumbled while pouring himself more coffee. He zeroed in on his father, sitting at the table and smirking over his coffee. "And what the hell are you so smug about? I'm glad you can find humor in this situation. I'm your son, it would be nice if you were on my side."

His father took that moment to laugh. Nick could only stare with a growing anger and a bigger sense of guilt.

Dmitri finally pulled himself under control. "I find it humorous that you, my urbanite businessman son, who has striven to keep his beast chained while he conquered the human world, are confronted with the one part of our existence you cannot control or change. Search your emotions son, and tell me what you feel for the girl."

Nick stared at him waiting for the punchline, only to realize what the growing pall over his vision might be.

"Shit." He knew there was a reason he had a headache. "I love her."