Page 1 of Her Wolves

CHAPTER 1

Kris

Keep the Princess safe at all costs.

That was my unofficial mission on the Earth colony planet Lycia.My main mission was to help beef up security and keep the planet safe.But the Prime Regent of the planet, everyone knew, was most worried about his daughter.

That was why I and hundreds of others of the Canis Guard were aboard this transport ship, bound for that planet where humans and lycanthropes had settled five decades ago.I sat by a window, occasionally glancing at the stars outside, but mostly focused on where I was going and what I’d do there.I looked at my data glass, ran a finger over the options and commands on one side, and called up a scan of the planet from orbit—and someone I would meet, or at least get to see, when I got there.

Lycia was a beautiful planet.But the most beautiful thing about it was the daughter of the head of its government.Tara Landon, the blonde artist daughter of the man presently running the planet, looked like her genteel upbringing.She was beautiful and refined, wore her hair long, and seemed to like to wear white, or at least she wore white in every scan I’d seen of her.It made her seem almost like something out of a storybook.The idea of actual “royalty” had been left behind generations ago, when all humans and all of my kind still lived on Earth.What the image of having a “royalty” did, was make it seem that much more romantic to come to settle and live on a planet light-years from home.

I swiped my screen to another section of my briefing, and in place of the images of Tara were old scans from decades ago about the beings who had made the early years of the colony hard.

The Soorns.They came from unknown space where no one from Earth had been because they knew the Soorns were there.We didn’t know much about them.Those we had met were nasty bastards and had laid a claim on the planet we’d named Lycia at about the same time as Earth did, and they weren’t interested in negotiating.I looked at one of them on my glass:a humanoid-type being with no hair anywhere on its body, pointed ears, and skin that shone like bituminous coal or polished leather.They just had an unfriendly look about them.

Moreover, what the Soorns did was unfriendly.They seemed hostile to everything, not just humans.The Soorns had learned to weaponize the artificial mutation of other creatures.They took animals and genetically engineered them into monsters designed and programmed for battle.The vids that I saw from old skirmishes with them on Lycia showed them with reptilian beasts the size of horses with fangs and claws that could shred opponents’ battle armor and dig grooves in the bodies of vehicles.The recordings actually showed these creatures biting people’s weapons in two.We Canis Guard, the elite lycanthrope security and peacekeeping force of Colonial Earth, were trained to be wolves without fear, but facing something like that in combat was enough to make the bravest heart shudder just a little.What would they throw at us the next time we met?

I noted proudly, though, that it was the ferocity of the Canis Guard, alongside the human Earth Alliance, that finally saw off the Soorns and left Lycia to be colonized only by Earth.The Canis Guard’s motto, I quietly recited to myself, was, Wolves in all body, wolves in all heart.If we turned and ran, it was only to circle back around and do battle again.

For the last five decades, Lycia had watched the part of the galaxy where the Soorns lived.Using long-range telescopes and multi-spectral scanners, they had held that sector under surveillance.They’d begun to find evidence of Soorn ships around lifeless planets and in asteroid belts and Oort clouds of frozen bodies—perfect places to watch without necessarily being seen.They would appear as glints, shadows, and blips, and the way they vanished as quickly as they were spotted, it was only the increased sophistication of Lycia’s equipment that had picked them up at all.It became a kind of arms race of surveillance and detection—but it got the attention of the Regency and the Houses of Nobles and Urbans that ran the colony.

That was why Lycia sent for reinforcements, especially new members of the Canis Guard who’d given the Soorns such a fight and handed them their ebony asses the last time.That was where I came in—I and the hundreds of other lycanthropes in our sleeveless uniforms, on our way to Lycia aboard this ship.We were fully expecting the same kind of battle that had been waged on that planet half a century ago.I felt it in the rows of seats around me—my fellow wolf men and women, trained and prepared, set to go into action the minute we made planet-fall if need be.

I swiped my glass to show me just two scans, one of the planet—and one close-up of Tara Landon.And my eyes lingered a bit more on the blonde Princess than the sphere of the planet where she lived.

*****

Like all seats of government, the official buildings of the city of Leto and the property they rested on were meant to impress you with what important places they were.Surrounded by perfectly kept groves of trees, color-splashed and perfectly tended gardens; were shiny buildings of artificial ivory and polished marble, the offices of Lycia’s bureaucracy.The lawmaking place, the building of the Houses of Nobles and Urbans, was a grand rotunda on one side of the biggest courtyard in the city.On the other side was a sprawling marble-and-glass, ivy-covered Regency mansion where the Prime Regent and his family lived.Rows of seats were set up in the courtyard with a stage and podium in front of them.The rest of the newly recruited Canis Guards and I sat in those seats with some other members who’d been on Lycia for a while and had been invited to welcome the newcomers.We all looked out towards the podium where the Prime Regent stood.At either side of the stage stood Guards in dress uniform with gold braids across their chests.In other chairs behind him were dignitaries including Martin Brunson, the Alpha Commander of the Canis Guard for this planet, also in dress uniform; other Colonial VIPs—and Tara Landon.

Prime Regent Landon gave his welcoming address to us recruits.Listening to him, I mostly watched Tara.The Princess—dressed in white and warm tones of off-white—looked very refined and just as beautiful as her scans.I could only guess that if I could get closer to her, she’d be even more beautiful. What would she think of me? I wondered.I wasn’t vain, but the females I’d been with—humans and lycanthropes—had always liked what they saw in me.I wore my dark hair as long as regulations would allow, almost but not quite to my shoulders, and kept my mustache and goatee carefully trimmed.Females, and some admiring males that I’d met, had always appreciated my looks and my trained, well-worked out body.But what would Tara think?

Daniel Landon, a tall man with threads of grey in his sandy blond hair, finished his speech and stated his appreciation andrespect for those of us who had come to join our fellow Guards in what he called “a time of great vigilance for us all.”He expressed his confidence in how we would carry out our duties in the days ahead and keep Lycia, the city of Leto, and the colony safe.The part about keeping Tara safe went unsaid, but I noticed her stiffening and straightening up more just then.The Prime Regent was divorced and Tara’s mother had left Lycia and gone back to Earth, and Landon supposedly had tried to persuade Tara to go with her.In a way, I was glad that he’d failed.It might have meant that the Princess was stubborn and hard to deal with.But she would be the most interesting thing I’d have to protect.

At the end of the speech, everyone in uniform stood and applauded, and those sitting behind the Prime Regent, including Tara, did likewise.The people on stage stepped down into the courtyard.Now would be the “meet and greet” part of the reception.

As everyone mingled around, I kept my eyes on Tara and her father, who were flanked by those two Guards from the ends of the stage.I made my way through the crowd, shaking hands and making greetings, and in between I kept watching Tara and hoping she might turn her attention to me.Instead, I saw her attention going to someone else.

Through the crowd from the opposite direction came a couple of other Guards who had the Princess in their sights as much as I did.One of them was maybe half a head taller than the other.He had brown hair, lighter than mine, slick but not oily, and a regulation-short growth of beard that showed off his firm, square jawline.He was a no-nonsense-looking sort of handsome guy.His manner said he was a natural leader and was used to being in charge at all times, including private times.With this guy, I thought, a female always knew who was boss—and who would take care of her.

But then there was his friend.This other one had darker hair on his head and just a shadow of growth on his face, and a look that was a little more relaxed than his buddy.He was a bit more boyish looking, the way that people sometimes said I was, but some intuition told me that this guy was always at the taller one’s side, that the two of them were a unit, a team.At least that was my first impression about this pair.First impressions can be wrong, but something told me I’d gotten the measure of these two at first glance.I’d spent enough time around other Guards to be able to size them up pretty quickly.

A hand clapped my shoulder.I whirled around to see who was trying to cut in with me for Tara’s attention.A smiling reporter with a holographic scanning stick said, “Hey, I want to get some scans of the Princess with some of the Guards.Do you mind?”

Knowing he was no competition, I relaxed.Actually he wanted to do me exactly the favor I needed.“Sure,” I replied, and let him lead me and a few other guys who were following him to where the Princess and those two others were standing.Her father and Commander Brunson stood by, looking on.

The tall Guard addressed the reporter.“Can we help you?”

“Can I get some scans of you and your friend and these guys with the Princess?”The reporter held up his wand-like gadget.

“Better ask the Princess herself,” the tall one said.Then he asked Tara, “How about it?”

I thought Tara, underneath the polite graciousness one would expect of her, seemed a little bored and fidgety when she answered, “Of course not.It’s what I live for.”And she put on her best camera-ready smile.“Please, go right ahead.Gather round, guys.”

With a hand on her hip and that smile, she was ready for business.So, with the Prime Regent and the Alpha Commanderstill watching, we all stood around Tara, and I made a point of getting myself in as close to her and the two guys that I’d first spotted her with as I could.I managed to get myself right next to her, with those two on the other side of her.Good job, Kris, I thought.

While the reporter aimed his holographic stick at us and got the shots he wanted, I looked out past him into the throng of other Guards and dignitaries and noticed a server, a thin and nondescript sort of guy, with a tray of drinks, circulating among them.For some reason my instincts zeroed in on him.Maybe it was only that he seemed to have just suddenly appeared from nowhere.But these guys always appeared and slipped away efficiently, not making their presence known except to do their job.I didn’t know why, but I had a feeling that if I’d been in my wolf shape at this moment, my ears would have pricked up at the sight of him.

As soon as the reporter was done, he thanked us and headed over to the Prime Regent for another photo op, and the other Guards who’d walked over with us dispersed.I took my chance right then.

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