Page 3 of Her Wolves

The fleeing server made an “Oof!” sound as I connected with the middle of his back.He lost his grip on the tray and it whirled away and clattered on the pavement.We hit the pavement, and he surprised me by struggling against me with strength greater than a human—but not as great as my wolf form.We rolled around on the ground and he battered at me with his fists.I growled, a warning that I’d do worse than tackle him if he kept resisting.After another roll, I got him pinned down, and he looked up at me with wild eyes—and in the grasp of my paws, his body changed!

My quarry’s pale human skin turned black and shiny.His hair disappeared and his ears turned to points.Not loosening my grip on him, I still reeled back in shock at whom and what it was I had just caught.

“Damn!” I shouted.“You’re a Soorn!”

He took advantage of my startled reaction and slammed upward with the palm of one hand, connecting hard with my chest, knocking me back on my bottom and giving himself a chance to scramble to his feet.With a long, angry growl, I leapt up again, and before he could break into another run, the hard swing of my paw connected with his face.He landed hard on the pavement and didn’t move again.

I stood over the unconscious figure crumpled before me.I licked my chops and whined, studying what I had just brought down, and a tingle went down the fur of my back.

“Damn,” I repeated, more softly.“You’re a Soorn.”

Gathering my wits again, I picked up the alien and slung him over my shoulder, and walked back with him to the courtyard.

*****

Entering the courtyard again with the alien over my shoulder was like walking into Hell.Everywhere was thick, grey, eye-stinging smoke.The place was littered with the fallen, flaming limbs of the animated trees, and blasted and splintered pieces of trunks.Guards moved about, slicing their blades through some of the branches.They had set their weapons as torches to cut down their attackers.An animal instinct inside me felt like a pre-sentient wolf in a forest fire.My stomach sank at the sight of those broken trunks heaving and the severed, burning limbs twitching, as if they were the parts of an animal, cut off and set afire.The unconscious figure that I carried should have something to say about all this, once we got him talking.

As if on cue, Nick Travis and Lon Black came striding out of a wall of smoke and stopped in their tracks at the sight of me and the one I was carrying.Their wolf ears stood up and the noses in their wolf snouts flared.

Pointing at the alien, Lon yelped, “That’s not…!”

“It is,” I said.

Growling, Nick said, “Get him inside the Estate House.The Commander and the Prime Regent are there; they’ll need to see this.”

I followed Nick and Lon through the infernal place the courtyard had become.As we passed, other Guards stopped, gaped, and whined at what I was carrying.I didn’t blame them one bit.

In the entrance hall of the Regency Mansion we found Commander Brunson, Prime Regent Daniel Landon, Tara, and her Upper Secretary friend with a group of Guards who had come inside with them.The Commander was talking to someone, probably the High Alpha Command, on his comm unit, and the Prime Regent held Tara in his arms.She was shaken and I didn’t blame her any more than I did my mates outside.But the biggest shock was in store for all of them when I walked in with Nick and Lon—and dumped my prisoner on the floor.

At the sight of the alien, all voices stopped except for the Commander saying something about making a further report later.All eyes turned to the figure at my feet.Tara gasped.

The Princess, surprisingly, was the first to step forward and find her voice.“I…I’ve only read about them.And seen old scans from fifty years ago.He actually is one.”She seemed more amazed than scared as she studied him.

Commander Brunson called, “Princess!Be careful; don’t get too close!Someone stop the Princess!”

Nick came around me, Lon at his side as always, and took Tara by the shoulders, holding her in place.“Princess, you should stay back,” he said.

“Yes, don’t get near him.You don’t know what he could do if he wakes up,” Lon warned.

And I silently agreed with both of them.The Soorns had just done an unpredictable thing, weaponizing plant life, and we didn’t know what else we could expect from this one.

It was our job, all of us Canis Guards, to protect the civilians of the colony from these bastards.But the uppermost thing on my mind right now—and, I was sure, on the minds of Sub-Commander Travis and Lieutenant Black—was the safety of Princess Tara Landon.

Nothing—nothing—must happen to her.

CHAPTER 2

Lon

“What do you really think of this guy?” I asked Nick.

We were having breakfast in one of the Canis Guard dining halls.Nick’s data glass was on a stand on the table.The Colonial Newsfeed was playing back the ceremony in the Regency Manor’s Media Center, where Kris Tynan was decorated for Outstanding Valor in the surprise attack of the mutated trees in the courtyard.Right out of the Canis Guard Academy, he hadn’t been on Lycia for more than a few hours when he took action in a crisis and chased down and captured a Soorn spy.The next day the Prime Regent held a ceremony in the Media Center, with everyone present who had been there when the trees started walking, plus a few of the most important Nobles and Urbana and some other VIPs from across the Colony.Nick and I were there, and so were Tara and Commander Brunson.Tara stood near her father and next to the Commander, smiling for the cameras, as Nick was brought up to the podium with the Prime Regent.Daniel Landon personally put Kris’s first wolf claw on the young recruit’s uniform and thanked and congratulated him for his quick-thinking actions.

A ceremony like this would usually have taken place in the courtyard outside, but that place was in no condition for an event like that after what happened during the welcoming of the new recruits.The place was full of patches of blackened grass and the spaces where the trees had been were now ugly holes torn in the soil.The grass would have to be regeneratedand the trees replanted.The whole thing had happened just a couple of days ago; there had been no time to get the courtyard ready for Kris’s decoration.So it was done indoors instead.

Watching Kris receive his first claw, I said, “How about this kid, anyway?He just got here a couple of days ago and it looks like he’s already going places in the Guard.”

Swallowing a bite of his breakfast steak, Nick said, “He showed initiative.The Commander ordered everyone to attack, and he didn’t follow orders—but he caught the Soorn bastard who’d been planted there.”He took a sip of his coffee and curled his lips in an ironic smile.“ ‘Planted’—pardon the expression.”

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