The Rogue's Daughter, The Alpha's Mate

The dead wolf on my steel table ceased being a wolf at 4:12 Tuesday morning. It had been 40 minutes later and I was still doing it. A game warden discovered an adult male, 112 pounds, off the Skalkaho road and wrote probable vehicle strike on the warden's form; I suspected that he had then gone home to a very large drink. The ribs of this animal were not cut as the vehicles are not cut. I was open on the left side and weighing my heart, humming to one working radio, a country station which was too faint to hear through the static. The first was static. The radio was no longer the noisiest object in the room. Bones crack and make sounds that you can't forget. The sound was a long, wet creak, as a boat would settle on a dock. I turned my head up from the scale. The snout was getting shorter. The gray guard hairs were retracting to their skin, and the paws that I've been dealing with carefully because the claws were still sharp had knuckles. I didn't scream. I want that on record, I want that on record. I put the heart down in its tray or else you drop evidence, you lose the case, and I backed up until I hit my hip on the counter. I was aware of what I was seeing. The bad part was that.The bad part was that. I knew since my mother sat on the edge of my bed and told me at age 9, in the same tone of voice she used when giving me splinter or fever advice, what she was and what I might be one day. It was just that I hadn't seen it on my table. At the end, there was a man lying there. A tan line on the wrist where a watch should have been, a dark beard and an age of mid 30's. My cut was right down his chest, he was definitely dead, and dead well. “Alright,” I said to the room. My voice got weak. "Okay. Okay." I made him six poses to photograph, as I had to work on my hands. Thereupon, I did what I do best: I looked at what was there. If you are patient, then a body will tell you the truth. Raw abrasions, like rope, or something with a buckle, encircled his left wrist. He had a full tummy. I knew I would, since I didn't have to open him. Four minutes later the phone on the wall rang. My supervisor, Greg Lindqvist, didn't call before 7. Nora. Don't touch anything else, I am going to have someone here to collect that animal. "Greg, it's no longer an animal! Silence. A long one. Then: "I know. Be patient. He will be here in twenty minutes. He, I thought. Not they. Not the state. He. I stayed put. Not exactly "obedience," but that's the closest I can get to the word. I just didn't think of anything better to do and I have found that when you have no plan, you are better off just running around the building like you have one. He spent 19 minutes. I heard the truck first (a bad value diesel) then heard boots in the hallway. I had been washing my forearms at the sink for a long time that they were pink. I was surprised to see the door open, with my hands still dripping. The man in the doorway was tall, so he looked at the frame before going through. Canvas jacket, dark hair that needed cutting, a broken nose (at least twice) and set by a non-medical person. He had a gray blanket folded and a duffel bag. It wasn't as though he didn't look at me first. He glanced at the table. I knew him by his name, just as you know a name that you've been saying without ever mentioning it. Caleb Rourke. 5 years ahead of me at Hamilton High, Alpha of Larch Hollow pack since his dad's death, and why I'd been taking the longer way around Marrow Creek when I was an adult. He said, "Miss Whitlock. "It's Nora." I don't know why that was the first thing out of my mouth. No one can walk in here, this is a state facility. There is an intake process and—" "His name was Jonah Pruitt." He went to the table and spread the blanket over the man's legs, which is how you cover a man when he sleeps. He was missing for three weeks and his sister has been calling me daily. "I'm sorry." I meant it. I was also within three feet of evidence he was about to take. “But I do need to document—“ "You've documented it." "I haven't finished." At last he turned his eyes to me. I have since attempted to give an account of the events. The only thing I can deduce from it is that someone opened a window in a room that was supposed to be closed. Hot and cold iron, and something underneath, warm, like a stovetop after bread comes out. It came to me all at once, out of nowhere, and straightened my hair along my arms. At my hips, underneath my ribs, where my spine was, at the base of my spine, something awakened, it turned over and opened its eyes, it had been asleep for twenty six years. My legs went. I received the ball and lost it. Even before I hit the ground I was across the room. His hand was in my upper arm, pressing through my lab coat, and he said quietly, "Breathe. Not through your nose. Through your mouth. What have you done to me?" Nothing, I swear I didn't! His voice had a roughness and was not completely steady. "Nora, listen. “Do you know anyone else who is in this building?” "Why?" "Your hands." I looked down. I was just wrong with my fingers. The nail beds had turned-black, and knuckles were swollen as if they were caught in a door. Heartbeat later, pain was bright and hungry, different from all I ever knew, so near to joy that I had to force myself to say, yes.A heartbeat later, bright and hungry, and different from all I ever knew, so close to joy that I had to say, yes. There was a wolf tugging at a rope that I wasn't even aware I had around my ribs. Cal's grip tightened. He didn't look at my hands. He was looking at my face, and what was in his expression was not shock. It was relief, and underneath it, it was a bit like guilt. “Don't move here," he said. “Please, not yet, hold on a little longer” No, I still hear the roar in my ears, I thought. Not what you're doing. How is this possible? Not yet. As if he'd been waiting for this.