12-Jun-2002

Note: The arc is currently under a massive revision, and will be under revision for at least another four to six months, so there will be some discontinuities until I can get everything fixed.

Author: Dan
Genre: epic AU
Pairings: NA
Disclaimer: not mine, don't sue.
Warnings: AU, a positive plethra of OCS, high supernatural and yech factor, angst
Further Note: terms from such literary gems as Laurel K. Hamilton are used and then twisted beyond all recognition.

Of Wolf And Man by Dan

Part Fifteen

Waking up was the hardest thing that I had ever had to do, next to dissolving the Sank kingdom and watching all my ideals burn down to ash. My body felt like it had been hit by a Mack truck, and then backed over a few times for good measure. I opened my eyes to the soft dusk light and had the distant thought that, if I hurried, I might actually be on time for work. The human part of me equated the tentative light with dawn, not dusk-which I rarely saw working for the Foreign Affairs office. One part of me kept my human routine with all its neat, clean habits. The other knew, down to the exact moment, when true darkness would fall.

With my eyes closed tightly against the images running around in my head I curled into a small ball. The farther I fell into this shadow world, the more I just wanted to quit. Years of politics, but a few months as a lycanthrope were enough to make me beg for something to end it. And end it quick. I had always known how fragile my ideals were, but feeling them fall apart left me with this deep, helpless rage. I had been walking in glass slippers--and now that they were broken I was left standing in the shards bleeding.

I opened my eyes to stare at my outstretched hand on the dark sheets. The blood pulsed through my veins in a sluggish rhythm. As Wufei had taught me, I slowed my breathing to follow that beat, and felt a little better. I closed my hand slowly, watching my fingers curl in, tightening until my nails bit into my palm. The pain was sharp, immediate, and real. It made me feel more in control of myself. Sick, but true.

A shadow moved up my body, but I didn't turn to face Aidan; that would have been too much effort to shift that fraction of an inch to turn my face to his. It was stupid, really, for me to be sleeping with my back to the door, but I didn't care. Aidan settled down next to me, spooning that long body of his around mine-touching just for the comfort of it. He reached over my body to place his hand on mine, gently forcing me to open my hand before I drew blood. His gentleness made me feel even more lost.

I let him lie draped around me, as if we were a pair of puppies settling down for a nap. I could feel the steady beat of his heart against my back, and I was reassured by the gentle intimacy of our position. It was strange. I was not a touchy-feely person by nature, but the more time I spent around Aidan, the more comfortable I was with it, the more I longed for it. I could feel it when he drew in a breath to ask a question.

"So, what's the plan?" Aidan's breath tickled the side of my ear making me want to twitch it the way I could in my other form.

"We need to talk to Victor, and we need to bring in the rest of the pack. If there is going to be a war, they need to know." Even though my voice was calm, a little ripple of fear flowed through me. I was afraid of what would happen when I stepped into the lupanar. I was going to be challenged, I knew that, but that wasn't what worrying me. I didn't want to think too closely about my new found ability to beat the living shit out of someone and not feel anything. No, I was afraid of being revisited by the friendly ghosts of our pack--afraid of the munin and what they would do.

Aidan chuckled a little, and I realized that he really wanted us to see Victor. Then it struck me. I had been keeping him away from the lukoi, and for a wolf that was fully integrated into the pack--not a semi-loner like me--that was like cutting him off from family. I sighed, feeling suddenly guilty. Rolling over onto my side, I rested my head against his chest; it was bare, but I was fine with that. I pressed my lips to the skin above his heart, and felt his heartbeat speed up in response. I could feel, see, his blood move under and through his flesh. I was being far more wolfish than normal. It was too close to a full moon for me to be able to completely shut out my beast, and being this close to a nearly-naked Aidan was not helping my control.

Aidan shivered at my touch. "Don't tease; it's not nice."

I laughed at him then. "I'm the tease? That's rich, coming from the man who has done nothing but flirt, hint and suggest from the first day we met."

He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up of the bed, and I reacted before he could-and before I had time to think about it. I swung one leg over his narrow hips so that I was sitting astride him, pressing him down into the mattress with both hands on his chest. I moved so fast that it seemed like magic, which made both of us blink with surprise. I hadn't known I could move like that.

He lay under me, those beautiful green eyes wide. I think it was the first time I'd ever seen him utterly shocked by something that I had done. "You don't want this, Relena. Not really."

I leaned over his body so that my hair spilled around us, like a dark honey curtain against the outside world. I lowered my face until we were kissing distance. "I'll decide what I want and what I don't want."

He closed his eyes at the first brush of my lips across his, and that small gesture brought me back to myself. I sat up and away from him, suddenly feeling very embarrassed, confused, and frustrated. Part of me wanted to run my hands and mouth over him, to mark him the way my power had already marked him, but the saner, more self-aware part of me knew that wouldn't be a good idea. Then there was that part of me that wanted to curl up into a little ball with my shame; that part of me kept getting smaller and smaller. I just didn't have time for the shame, and had a hard time seeing the reason for it.

I started to slide away from him, but Aidan followed me to the edge of the bed. He slid his arms around my waist, but so lightly that I didn't feel confined.

"I'm sorry," he murmured against my hair.

"For what?" The apology honestly surprised me. If anyone should have been apologizing, it should have been me.

"You gave me the chance to take advantage of you, and I didn't take it." I could feel him start to grin, and the corners of my lips twitched in reply. "I'm going to be kicking myself in the butt for this for years to come."

That did make me laugh, which came perilously close to turning into a sob. That just plain pissed me off. The anger felt good. I was tired of being scared, depressed, and lost. Tired of being used and manipulated by people just because I played by a set of rules. Because I had principles. Well, if I was going to be used because of my principles, then maybe I could start using everyone else's + lack of them. I sure as hell was not going to be anyone's victim. Not anymore. I placed my hand on Aidan's arm, two fingers against the pulse at the bend of his elbow. I couldn't afford to be used by anyone anymore; I had people to protect.

Aidan nuzzled the side of my neck. "I don't know what you're thinking, but the change is good."

"You can smell the change in what I'm thinking?"

He made a small affirmative sound. "You used to smell like someone had smacked you around a little too often, like your will had been broken. You don't smell submissive anymore."

I stood up, sliding away from the comforting circle of his arms. I smiled at him, and it wasn't my self-mocking smile anymore. "Well, I guess that's good."

He stared up into my face, green eyes very earnest and surprisingly vulnerable. "Stay like this, Relena. Stay like this for us, because the pack can't be weak anymore."

That statement caught me off-guard. I had never thought of the pack as weak. I'd always thought we were strong, especially with Victor excluding so much calm control every time I saw him. Slow dread seeped through me, like ice cube sliding down my spine. "What do you mean, Aidan?"

He looked away, frowning, but not because he was angry or displeased--more like he was trying to find exactly the right way to explain things to me. "Victor is strong, but he's just about the only one who is. He's still trying to put the pack back together after what that bloodsucking bitch did to us."

I reached out and cupped his chin, turning his face up to look at me. "Just how bad is it?"

"Not so bad, really." His eyes slid away from mine for a moment and then back. "But if you have the will to live--the will to protect us--it'd be better. Because your will becomes the will of the pack."

I could feel the heavy weight settling upon me again, the same pressing, suffocating weight I felt all through and after the war. I tried to keep my voice light, easy, but the exhaustion slid into it like poison into well water. "If I don't have the will to live, no one else will?"

"No." Aidan sighed in frustration as he stood up slowly. "It's hard to explain. But there's a group mind within the lukoi. Like a coven that has been working magic together for a long time. Everyone becomes a part of the group, and forms a bond that is bigger than just the individual; within that, there is a pack mind."

"So… one person's depression affects everyone else?"

Aidan nodded, and gave me a quick smile, like a teacher to a particularly perceptive student. "The emotions, thoughts, are like karma; it comes around threefold. The stronger the negative emotions of one person, the heavier they weigh upon the group mind. But it works the other way as well. The stronger the positive feelings, the stronger the bond between members and the stronger the pack will be. The power of the person also affects the group mind, and because you're an alpha-and Geri--your will is more strongly felt by the rest of the group. You can make the lukoi feel the way you do."

"Why can't Victor provide this kind of strength for the pack?" I wondered aloud.

"Victor does," Aidan growled at me. I looked at him with surprise. I thought of him so often as ‘my' Skoll that I forgot that his primary loyalties were to Victor. But the fierceness in his emerald eyes made me wonder how much of what Aidan felt towards Victor was just loyalty. "But Victor is only one alpha out of a pack of 450."

I whistled softly. I hadn't realized that we were so large. "And there aren't any other alphas?"

"There are," he said slowly. Aidan rubbed his temples as if he was starting to get a headache. "But, shit, Geri. Our pack is so fucked up. So many of our alphas have issues left over from what that bloodsucking bitch did to us that we aren't much use."

I made a mental note to press him about what that ‘bloodsucking bitch' had done to him. But not right now. I just waited quietly for Aidan to continue.

"I, we, try to be there for the pack," he said rather helplessly. "And sometimes we are. But we're just not strong enough, stable enough mentally to provide the type of support that Victor needs." He rubbed his temples again, and looked down at the floor helplessly. "We try."

"So I have to be careful." The weight of responsibility didn't go away, but it did ease a bit.

"You just have to be aware of it. Victor can shield the pack from you, and you from the pack, but…"

"We don't want him wasting energy like that."

Aidan gave me one of those pleased smiles again, and I felt the warmth all the way down to my toes. Maybe it wasn't just the rising full moon. Shit. Being attracted to Aidan was a problem; being more than attracted to Aidan might be a bloody nightmare. It wasn't as if things between Dorothy and I were all that simple either, and now I had to go and complicate things. I fought the urge to rub my temples.

"What's wrong?" Aidan touched my hand lightly, a slight frown forming between his eyes.

"Nothing," I lied, looking up into those concerned green eyes. "It's nothing you can fix at least."

"Relena…." he started to protest, but stopped when I held up a hand.

"Just… leave it alone for right now, Aidan." I closed my eyes, and counted to ten in my head to get my composure back. "It's not the most urgent problem that we have to deal with at the moment."

Aidan just nodded. If it had been Dorothy, or even Duo, I wouldn't have been able to hold them off. I would have been hassled and pushed until either I gave in and told them or completely ruined the relationship with my obstinacy. But Aidan would stop if I told him to.

"Tell me about the pack."

Aidan handed me a light leather jacket. I don't remember owning one, but it fit like it had been made for me. I shot him a narrow look and he just smiled sweetly. "What do you want to know about the Mori no Inori pack?"

"The name, for starters--what does it mean?" I pulled my hair into heavy ponytail on the top of my head as we stepped out the door. I might have been annoyed at the way that he was quietly hustling me out, like he was afraid that I would suddenly change my mind, but instead I found it kind of endearing.

"'The prayers of the forest.'" Aidan gave me a small smile. "Not very aggressive the way most pack names are, but it seems to fit us just fine."

I cocked my head to the side as I looked up at him thinking about our pack name. It actually gave me a sense of peace, a feeling that we could be more than mere beast. Do more than just kill. "Prayers have power, and often a power that goes unnoticed until it is far, far too late."

"And besides, prayers are things that belong only to those with sense, with reason, right?" Aidan smiled at me when I looked at him in surprise.

It was a complicated smile, holding sorrow, laughter, contempt, understanding, and frustration all at once. That smile made me revise what I thought of him more than any of the insightful little comments that he had made before. Aidan was one of those people who surprised you every time you thought you had him nailed down-wiggled away from your assumptions about him, and laughed at you.

I nodded. I'd given up trying to hide what I thought from him, not on things like this. It would only create a tension we could not afford. "Yes. And if we can pray, then we can find another way to deal with our enemies."

Aidan looked at me with that smile twisting his lips. "But you're not going to rule out violence."

"No." Even to me, the word sounded definite. "I'm not going to rule out violence."

I walked by him without looking at his face. I didn't want to see it-whether it was pity or the triumph. I'd grieve over how far I'd fallen another time. Or maybe I wouldn't grieve.
--

I rested my head against the cold glass of the car window, and watched the city pass by. The concrete and glass of the city skyscrapers rose and fell in a steady rhythm that almost lulled me to sleep. I felt fairly comfortable about going to the lupinar, so I was justifiably confused when Aidan turned off on the wrong exit, heading west into the heart of the city instead of north towards the uninhabited hills. I sat up sharply. "Where are we going?"

"To see the pack," Aidan replied, as if it should have been obvious

"Then why aren't we going to the lupinar?"

Aidan gave me that slightly amused, condescending look again. "We only go to the lupinar during the full moon or when something big is going down."

I guess I must have looked miffed, because Aidan grinned at me cheekily. "As momentous it is to have you coming to see the pack willingly, it's not that big of a deal."

I had the grace to look slightly ashamed. "So if we aren't going to the lupinar then where are we going?"

"It sort of like a hang out for our pack in the city." There was something in his voice that made me look at him hard. He seemed almost embarrassed, which was bad news where I was concerned. Anything that would slightly embarrass Aidan would leave me mortified for weeks.

"What's this place?" I couldn't keep my voice from getting hard.

"It's a club." Aidan closed his eyes like he was waiting for my explosion. When I didn't respond and the silence dragged on, he opened one eye cautiously. Thank God no one else was on the road; we would have run them over.

"A club," I repeated thoughtfully. "That's not so bad." A thought hit me and I scowled in distaste. "Unless, of course, it's one /those/ clubs."

Aidan laughed uproariously at that, making my left eye twitch in irritation. "No, no, it's not one of ‘those' types of clubs. It's, um…" Aidan seemed to be at a loss for adjectives, which made me nervous. "Sort of gothy."

"Gothy?" I was becoming a parrot.

"You know, lots of black, leather, angst, mild bondage gear…." His voice trailed off when I looked at him with very large eyes. He gave me a reassuring smile. "But we're going to be there during off-hours."

"And that makes everything better?" I replied, voice just a little shrill.

Aidan sighed. "Geri, you are such a prude."
~~

As we got out of the car, I couldn't help but look around curiously, and feel a little disappointed. The club was rather mundane-looking. The only way you could tell it was even there was by the wrought-iron sign hanging above the unobtrusive doorway. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of being utterly casual in looking around, but apparently I was wrong. Aidan leaned against the car, folded his arms on the top, and grinned at me.

"What?" I asked, just a little defensive.

He just shook his head. "What are you looking for?"

I gave him a small sheepish smile. "Well, you did make it out to be a little more," I waved a hand helplessly as I searched for the right word, "more exciting."

He arched one eyebrow. "Not in the middle of the day."

"Oh."

"You really didn't get out much, did you?"

"Shut up, Aidan."

He gave me a bemused smirk and held open the door. "Just go inside, Geri."

I walked past him, but not before shooting him a look. "You mean go inside and stop being such a twit?"

"I am not touching that comment with a twenty-foot pole."

"Being nice to me?"

"I just don't want my head handed back to me."

"Ah, so you can learn," I laughed. I stepped into the dark club, and the sudden wave of scents made me stumble. I would have fallen, except that two pale hands caught my elbows and helped me to steady myself. I let those slender hands hold me up for a moment as my head spun from the sensory overload. I could smell the cigarettes, the perfume, the alcohol, and the scent of the crowd last night. It wasn't that the scent was all that strong for a human, but so close to the full moon it just overwhelmed me because I didn't know how to stop it. I clung to those hands as if they were the only stable things in my world. Because for those few heartbeats they were. It was then that I truly understood how much my sense of smell meant to me. Without it, I was blind and fumbling. I gripped those pale, long-fingered hands with enough force to bruise, while I struggled through one of Wufei's tedious breathing exercises. I took a few more calming breaths through my mouth than was really necessary before I gently pushed away from whoever held me.

It was her eyes that I noticed first when I looked up. Huge, deep chocolate brown eyes that seemed childish in their concern. The darkness of her hair against her pale skin made it seem translucent, almost magical-like the skin of a sleeping princess. She was about the same size as Hilde, but something about her made her seem more-fragile, dainty. Hilde's energy, all her drive and force of personality, made her too vibrant to ever think of her as delicate-but this girl standing in front of me made me think she was made of porcelain. Beautiful, but not able to take much pressure. She squirmed minutely under my gaze, and with a jolt of embarrassment, I realized that I'd been staring.

I let her go, but she hovered close to me, as if afraid to be too far outside my immediate reach. Or perhaps, afraid to let me out her immediate reach. I shot Aidan a questioning glance, but his attention was on a door on the far side of the room. I glanced over, cautiously testing the air-testing the room for the residual psychic scent that always lingered after things that were slightly more than human-slight slightly ‘other.' I caught a multitude of scents, psychic energies that said lukoi, pack, but not family. Those scents should have smelled like home, and the fact that they didn't felt wrong even to me. Aidan shot me a grin when I stepped around the girl in front of me, putting myself between her and the doors. It was a subconscious gesture on my part, but I knew it pleased him-which sort of amused me. He was creating a role for me, and I was stepping neatly right into it. Ah, well, a problem for another time.

"Has the meeting started yet, Maria?" he asked the dark-haired girl gently.

"No. Victor hasn't arrived," her voice was quiet, worried, but not tremulous. It made me think better of her. She wasn't an alpha by any stretch of the imagination, but she wasn't just anyone's meat either.

"Mikel is here, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is." There was something in their voices that made me tense, brace for a fight. There was a grimly determined tone in their voices. As if they were expecting to wait out some sort of storm.

"Is this Mikel going to be a problem?" I asked with icy calmness.

Maria regarded me with a worried solemnity that confirmed my suspicions. "He might be."

"Why?" I thought about the situation for a few minutes. "And what kinda of problem?"

"Mikel is Freki, third in command of the pack. He's ambitious, arrogant, cold hearted son of a bitch," Aidan muttered. "He's got an image of how the pack ought to be, and ignores anything that might disrupt that little illusion."

"Aidan tell us how you really feel," Maria murmured. Aidan snorted in amusement.

I cocked an eyebrow at her. Silently asking her opinion of Mikel. I had a feeling that Aidan wasn't the most trustworthy source on this Mikel's character.

She gave me a tense shrug. Her eyes drifted away from mine to fasten on the floor. Maria, apparently, did not like 'bad-mouthing' her alphas. "Mikel is not... the ideal alpha."

"Not the ideal alpha?" It made me wonder what her ideal alpha was.

"He doesn't protect. Mikel figures that if you managed to get yourself into a mess, it's your responsibility to get yourself back out." A small frown line formed between her eyes. It was cute. "He doesn't care very much about individual pack member, but he does care about the pack."

Aidan snorted in disgust. "Mikel only cares about what the pack can do for him."

Maria gave him an amused smile. "Aidan and Mikel don't get along very well."

I looked at our Skoll, who was seething silently. I was beginning to thing that 'doesn't get along very well' might be the understatement of the year. "Why, again, is he going to be a problem?"

They exchanged glances. "He won't like that you're more powerful than he is. He really won't like that you became Geri without going through him first-that you did it without ceremony," Maria said.

"Mikel is fucking in love with pack law. He probably gets off quoting it," Aidan added. "The fact that we've been, well, kinda going around pack law is going to irritate him."

I frowned at him in confusion. "But Victor is okay with it."

Aidan gave me a sunny smile. "Yeah, I know. That's just going to piss him off more."

"Mikel has a lot of followers who believe that he should be Geri instead of Aidan because Aidan rarely listens to pack law. He only listens to Victor," Maria said seriously. Aidan stuck his tongue out at her. "It's true! And their going to be pissed because they'll think that she's cheated them out of a fair challenge."

I nodded mostly to myself. I closed my eyes, trying to weigh my options. I could not afford to have any enemies within the pack. We couldn't allow ourselves to be divided like that, to have those weaknesses-not with Trieze playing his games. He'd use any fault to break us, and we could not risk it.

Maria stood next me: serious and steady. It dawned on me that we had not been formally introduced, hadn't been introduced at all. She had just slipped into my calculations and plans like she'd always been part of them. She had that solidly loyal sense to her.

I looked at her thoughtfully until she turned to me slightly-just a slight angling of her body towards mine-with a slightly puzzled smile. "Maria?"

I made her name a question, and her confusion shifted into a pleased smile. "Maria Sanchez," her hand made an unconscious gesture-a quick flick of her wrist. "Fifth generation Mexican, third generation cop," her proud grin dimmed a little and her eyes shifted from mine. "I've been lukoi for three years, and without any name in the pack."

The way she named herself as part of the pack, the way she talked about it as if it were a wound made me narrow my eyes. I disliked the soft bitterness that slid into her voice when she said the last bit. I hated to think that someone with so much apparent inner strength could be so reduced in our pack just because she didn't have the otherworldly power to match it. I disliked it a lot.

Maria looked at me apprehensively. She knew I was suddenly annoyed, but did not know why.

Aidan patted her shoulder. "Don't talk about yourself that way. She won't like it."

"But I am," she protested, spreading her hands a little.

"You don't believe that," I said more to myself than to her.

She shot me a shy look from beneath her lashes, and I knew I was right. "But that's what's always said."

"Said by whom?" I asked, almost whispering.

"Mikel."

"How long did he have to tell you that before you believed it?" I asked. Aidan's face has turned gone so perfectly still, perfectly blank. It was probably a warning before the storm hit. He knew something was going to be said that was going to make me explode. I watched his face while I waited for Maria's answer.

"He's always told me that," Maria's voice took that soft, 'don't-look-at-me' tone that the abused always have. I understood what it was like to think of yourself as nothing, as utterly expendable. But to be told that by someone who should be your safety, your rock... I shook my head. Maybe I was projecting, maybe not, but a leader should never let that type of bitterness creep in. Maybe that was why politics now made me sick to my stomach. I chill swept through me as I had a new, horrible thought.

"Just told you?" I asked ever so gently. "Or did he find other ways of convincing you of your inferiority."

"Mikel didn't apply the beatings," Aidan responded for the girl. Maria bowed her head so her hair spilled around her, hiding her face from view. "But he knew about them, and he didn't stop them."

"He should have stopped them." It wasn't a question.

"He should have stopped them," Aidan agreed.

This Freki, the third in command or our pack, has sanctioned beating against his own pack mates. I closed my eyes tightly. There might be a reason for it. Maybe. "Why did they beat you?"

Maria shook her head. "I don't know."

Aidan's face was tight with anger. "Because they could."

"And Mikel did nothing to stop it," I finished the thought for him. I was angry, so, so angry. It rampaged through me like the waters of a flash flood. I growled low in my throat as I moved towards that door on the far side of the room. This Mikel had just volunteered himself to be my personal outlet, whether he knew it or not.

"Did anyone tell him?"

Maria looked up at me. Those chocolate-brown eyes were hollow. "Yes. He said that if I wasn't strong enough to protect myself than I wasn't worth having in the pack."

I stared at her in disbelief. My rage flashed through me: first burning hot, then icy cold. I turned to look at Aidan, horrified and enraged.

"I put a stop to it when I knew," he said quietly. It was exactly the right thing to say. I could feel myself calming. "But I wasn't around a lot. We had... other problems to deal with. And when I wasn't there…."

He didn't need to finish the statement. I knew what had happened while he was away. It didn't help my temper any.

Aidan tried to grab me, to pull me back and talk some reason into me before I threw open that door, but he missed me by half an inch. I flung open the door so hard the top hinges broke with a hideous metal squeal. I burst into that room with all my otherworldly energy, my rage, spilling into the room like the rolling heat of an explosion. Two werewolves nearest the door scrambled backwards to get out of my way as I strode into the room. I knew without looking that there were three more on the right side of the room-two in a couch and rising to his-her? It didn't matter-knees in confusion. There were four more on the left, seated around one of those useless little tables that every bar seems to have. The two I had startled backed away from me, careful not to turn their backs to me, and edged towards the closer to the bar on the far side of the room.

My beast ran through my veins like sweet fire, the fury in me like a fine whisky. It was too close to the full moon for me to want to fight back and push that raging thing down into the darkest depths of psyche where it normally lurked. That voice that stilled believed in pacifism, in perfect peace, cried out once and then was blissfully silent. I rode that righteous violence, and I could not call it back. I didn't even want to. I needed it.

I stopped in the middle of the room, testing the psychic scents that rode the air. I felt, rather than saw, Aidan and Maria follow me into the room. They stayed near the door like a pair of bodyguards. They were unsure, I think, of what I was doing, and afraid of me. Just a little bit. I scanned the room slowly, arrogantly. My beast was supremely confident that I was the strongest one her in terms of power. There were a few that were obviously physically stronger than I was, but their power didn't breathe a long my skin the way that mine swept down theirs. I caught the outraged, wary looks, and was not sorry for them. Not sorry at all. I was amused.

"Who is Mikel?" My voice was mine and not mine. It crawled out of my throat almost a full octave lower than my normal alto.

A tall slender man stepped forward from the werewolves huddled around the circular table. Their eyes followed him with wary concern. He was not handsome, but he had an interesting face full of harsh angles. He tried to use his height to intimidate me, which was a mistake. It showed that he was nervous. It showed that he felt I had enough power to be a threat.

"You're our new Geri?"

"And you would be the asshole tearing our pack mates apart from the inside out."

The hissing venom in my voice made him uneasy. Whatever he had been expecting from me, it was not that. Some emotions slid through his eyes so fast that I could not identify it. what I said, I was willing to bet, struck a little too close too home for Mikel's taste.

"What would you know about our pack, Geri?" He made my rank and insult. I was expecting the disdain in his voice, but no the underlying hurt. That did make me pause. What was going on here? I shook my head to clear that sneaking doubt. I couldn't afford to hesitate right now.

"I know enough," I growled back at him.

He sneered at me. "You don't know shit, Geri."

I was getting tired of him using my title like it was an insult. I knew he was trying to goad me into throwing the first punch, but I didn't know why. That made me cautious. I wanted him to say something to make it official, but he kept dancing around an out right confrontation. That only made me more determined to get it.

I stalked up to him, and then around him. My hips rolling in a gliding swagger. I was very aware of the werewolves around me as they backed away from us slowly. They were careful not to make any sudden movements. Afraid to draw my attention to them.

Mikel held my gaze, and it forced him to half-turn as I stalked around him. His shoulders tensed. It was a tiny gesture, but I was watching him so closely that I could see it. That small movement made me smile.

"Nervous, Freki?" I murmured to him-a mere breath of words for our ears alone.

"No."

"Liar."

His eyes were hostile, but beautiful. We were so close I could see the shift of colors in his irises-a sudden gradation in the shades of blue against his dark, dark lashes. He blinked breaking the spell.

"Outsider," he whispered back at me.

"Interloper, intruder, usurper," I replied in a faint singsong voice. We were so close that there was only us in that room. I stared into his eyes, deadly serious. "It doesn't matter. I'm here now."

"Not if I can help it," he said.

I smiled again; it felt strange and tight, and it made Mikel hesitate. I cocked my head to the side, an old habit of mind since high school. "Is that a challenge?"

Mikel tensed.

I leaned up and into him as if I were going to press my lips to his. I stood on tiptoe with one hand against his chest to balance myself. "That's the only way you'll get me to leave this pack."

"Succession fights aren't to the death."

"They can be," I murmured.

"Fine."

We stepped away from each other like lovers leaving a tender embrace-slowly and reluctantly. A nervous tension settled in the pit of my stomach. I'd very deliberately picked the first fight of my life-a fight to the death even. I had to clench my fists until my nails bit into my palms to keep from laughing. I felt a little odd and jittery, like I had drunk too much coffee on an empty stomach. I half expected someone to hold a hand between us and say: "Fight!" but all around us the werewolves shifted uneasily. They were afraid of the tension building between Mikel and I.

Mikel closed his eyes for a moment. And then lunged forward in a half-falling, half-surging motion. All that otherworldly speed and strength flung his hair about like wind. I could see those lovely lapis lazuli eyes through the cloud of his true black hair as he sprang at me. I fell before him.

As I dropped away underneath him, I fisted my hand in his shirt and rolled with him. Mikel's eyes widened in surprise as he struck the ground with enough force to drive the air from his lungs and throw the dust between the floorboards up into the air. I felt that sudden explosion of breath as I landed firmly on his chest. There was a moment, no more than a heartbeat, when we were almost at kissing distance again because my arms gave out beneath me. I caught myself, our noses almost touching. He looked so startled it was almost funny, and I smiled at him, a faint dreamy smile.

Mikel reared up underneath me, trying to dislodge me. I moved with his body and raised on hand, feeling it reform itself into that monstrous arm. It almost hurt as my bones shifted and lengthen, sinews popped and reformed. The bones slid through muscle making want to scream. Not that it exactly hurt, in fact, it almost felt good. The fact that feeling my muscles reform themselves under my skin felt good nearly made me sick to my stomach. I was lost in the sensation for a moment. That moment cost me.

Mikel hit me with a right hook, using the force of his weight to send me careening against the base of the bar. My shoulder screamed in pain, and I gave a cut off screech of pain and rage. I landed awkwardly, mostly on that damaged shoulder with my half-shifted arm pinned underneath me.

Mikel was on his hands and knees. Balanced in a position that should have been impossible to move in, he looked dangerous. His power flowed off him in nearly unperceivable waves. He moved towards me in a low stalking crawl. More muscles that he should have had moved under the skin of his shoulders. I had a half-second to tense before his body slammed into mine.

His hands, not yet shifted, tore at my stomach. I grabbed one of his wrists. My hand barely wrapped around his. I felt the muscles of his forearm writhe underneath my touch, felt them twist underneath my grasp, and I knew I had very little time before he performed a half shift of his own. I tried to drag his arm away from my unprotected belly, but supernatural strength does not work against supernatural strength.

I managed to distract him for the moment that it took to me to unpin my other hand and hit him. With claws that no human should ever have I ripped his shirt open and shredded his chest in one strike. Mikel screamed, jerking away from me, but remained straddling my hips. He hit my face open-handed. My head rang, and I tasted blood in my mouth, but I was eerily calm. Everything around me seemed to slow down. My breathing was very noticeable to me.

I grabbed him around the neck. My hand actually wrapped around his neck and covered half his lower face. My claws gently dug into the delicate skin of the back of his neck. Mikel's eyes widened-and in that second I think he realized that he might actually die.

I shifted my hips and managed to drag him off me without accidentally beheading him. We went into clumsy roll. Mikel gave a muffled scream as my claws sliced more deeply into his neck. I placed a hand on his chest and dragged my legs up his body until I was straddling him. I tightened that clawed, furred hand and his eyes widened again until I could see the whites all the way around his eyes.

There was blood everywhere. Blood from me, blood from him. It soaked into the fur of my arm, into the thighs of my jeans where I straddled him. I could smell its sweet, copper tang and for once it didn't make me want to throw up. It made things low in my body tighten until I growled low in my throat. I sat on his chest shuddering ever so softly as I fought for control. Fought to keep myself from feeding. Sheer disgust at that thought helped me climb back into control. I looked into his lovely, frightened eyes, and just felt tired and sore.

"Yield, Mikel."

End Part 15

Jude: The author, because she is a gutless coward, is hiding. Feedback does, believe it or not, make her write faster. And, Reishin, she's most sorry that she didn't get the fic out when she said she would. <glares at author hiding under the desk> Aren't you?

(:./dan/wolf15)