Page 2 of Her Wolves

Offering one hand to Tara and showing her my own best smile, I said, “How do you do, Princess?I’m Kris Tynan.”

Tara shook my hand as graciously as she’d posed for the reporter.“How do you do, Kris?”She gestured to the other two Guards, who had stayed right with her.“Have you met Subcommander Nick Travis and Lieutenant Lon Black?”

Examining them a little more closely, I noted that they both outranked me.Subcommander Nick had three claws on the upper left breast of his uniform and Lieutenant Lon had two.I hadn’t earned my first wolf claw—yet.

“Subcommander.Lieutenant.Good to meet you,” I acknowledged.

“Right out of the Academy, then, Kris?” Nick guessed.

“Yes, Sir,” I replied.“Grateful for the assignment and ready to work.”

“Good,” said Nick.“Fall in line, mind on your duty, you’ll do fine.”

“We need every fang and claw we can get here right now,” said Lon.

“Agreed, Sir,” I said.And directly to Tara, I said, “We’ll get the job done for you, Princess.”

She actually blushed a little bit at that.Nick and Lon watched me addressing her as if they were sizing me up the way I’d done them, which would not have surprised me.With lycanthropes around a female, assuming they were the type to want females, there was always an undercurrent of competition.

Tara took one step away and looked to a spot on one side of the courtyard.“If you boys will excuse me, I think I see my friend, the Upper Secretary, over there.”She waved, and the three of us looked in the direction she was looking, where a prim-looking young woman stood next to the serving guy, taking a glass from his tray.She waved in Tara’s direction.

Waving to the other young woman, Tara said to Nick and Lon, “Please excuse me, won’t you?”And to me she said, “Welcome to Lycia, Kris.I’m sure you’ll do a fine job for us.”

Tara moved off towards her friend.The three of us watched her go, and Nick said to me, “Yes, welcome to Lycia.You will do a good job.”

I gave Nick a glance and a respectful nod.I could tell he was subtly keeping me in my place.

Another friendly-sounding voice said, “I’m sorry if you found my daughter a bit abrupt just then.She’s a bit restless today.”

Coming up from behind Kris and Lon was the Prime Regent himself, flanked by Commander Brunson.I was being addressed by the leader of the planet, the Commander in Chiefof all of us, and right with him was the leader of the Canis Guard for the colony!Instinctively, I stiffened up and put on my most formal, respectful air, and I sensed Kris and Lon doing the same.We were in the presence of the two men who outranked everyone.

Nick and Lon made a saluting nod and I did the same.We all acknowledged the two men.“Mr. Prime Regent.Commander, Sir.”

The Prime Regent was cordial and welcoming.“With our present security measures in place,” he explained, “Tara is confined to the Regency Manor and not allowed to leave the property, not even with an armed escort.I’ve insisted on that.My daughter is a very sociable young woman who likes to come and go as she pleases.I don’t mind telling you we had quite a bit of a go-round about that.Headstrong young women can put up a bit of an argument when they don’t get their own way.”His smile was warm and kind, a smile not from discipline but concern.With a whole planet to worry about, as everyone knew, what worried Daniel Landon the most was his little girl’s safety.

“It’s for the best, Sir,” said Nick.“We won’t let anything happen to her.”

I took a glance back in the direction where Tara went.She was across the courtyard, chatting with her friend in front of a row of very well-pruned trees, identical to the row at the far end of the area.Off to the side stood the serving guy, his empty tray tucked under one arm, looking over the courtyard.Everything was normal and sociable…

…until it wasn’t.

“What the hell?” I whispered to myself at the sight of the leaves falling from the trees—not changing, just falling.The trees were shedding their leaves like a wolf shedding his fur.Tara and her friend noticed it too.The Upper Secretary looked up into the shower of green from overhead, and Tara held outher hand to catch some of the leaves like a little girl catching snowflakes.I kept my eyes on them while all around me was a chorus of curious voices.

A moment later came a rumbling and cracking sound, and the trunks of the trees twisted and convulsed.My squint turned to a hard clench of my brow.The trees became like a human having a seizure.The fur broke out on the back of my neck as the trees changed their shape.Their limbs turned to something more like arms.Arms!The arms of the trees stretched out like a man coming out of a deep sleep—and there was another evil-sounding crack and rumble as the bottoms of the tree trunks pulled themselves up from the grass and the soil—revealing roots that now moved like legs.Legs!

Tara grabbed her friend and they started to move quickly away from the unbelievable sight of trees that had become moving, walking creatures.The chorus of voices around me turned from wondering to shouting and screaming.Instantly, I morphed into my wolf shape, swapping my human body for my furred canine head and form.All the other Guards in the courtyard did likewise, and among the voices of human alarm were now the growls and yips of dozens of lycanthropes.

Everything broke out into frantic motion.I looked over my shoulder at the far end of the courtyard, where the trees had also transformed and torn themselves out of the ground.They lurched forward like zombies in an old Earth movie, and people scattered.Commander Brunson shouted orders and the Guards all around me whipped out their two-guns—the standard Canis Guard weapon, energy sword at one end, particle beam weapon at the other.I spun around to where I was looking before.The mobile trees on that end loomed over Tara and her friend, reaching out with their impossibly moving limbs and angling down at the two women.Nick and Lon had broken into a run past me and headed right for the Princess.Nick fired shotsfrom the beam end of his two-gun, which burst and sparked off the bark-covered “bodies” that threatened the Princess, while Lon had turned on the blade end of his own weapon and was charging forth with his energy sword raised, ready to slice through any limb that came near Tara.

Behind me, through the din, Commander Brunson bellowed out to people that I wasn’t looking at, “You, get the Prime Regent and the other civilians indoors!The rest of you—attack!”

But something else had caught my attention.That server was still over there—talking into a comm unit on his wrist.My wolf hearing, though much sharper than a human’s ears, couldn’t make out what he was saying in the noise.But then he ran out of the courtyard towards the legislative rotunda—and I could no longer hear what the Commander was saying over my own instincts shouting in my head, Get him!

I took off and wove around panicked humans and my own mates, and tore out into the street just off the courtyard.That server, still carrying his tray, ran towards the big dome of the lawmakers, passing from the pavement onto the grass.Fast as he was, I was still faster, and I closed half the distance between us in seconds, shouting out in my deepened wolf voice, “You!You there!Stop!”

The man looked over his shoulder as I came shooting like a missile at him, but didn’t slow down.In another second I got close enough to him to reach out and grab him by the collar.As if sensing how near I was, the server suddenly whipped around and swung his metal tray hard at me, connecting with my head and sending me flying.Tumbling onto the grass, I heard his footfalls speeding away and grunted angrily.I rolled to a crouch and saw my quarry speeding from the grass to the mosaic pavement surrounding the rotunda, and launched myself, growling, back at him again.

He wasn’t heading directly for the dome of the legislative Houses.Instead he ran around the arc of the rotunda in the direction of the landing lot.He must have a speeder parked there, ready for his getaway, I guessed.But who was this guy, why was he running away, and where was he going?Just as we came into view of the landing lot and the rows of speeders parked there, I got near my quarry again—only this time I didn’t reach out to grab him.Instead I leapt and tackled him.

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