Page 26 of Her Wolves

My heart sank.Few things are as hard to overcome as racial pride and traumatized racial memory; I knew that from the history of Earth.I was utterly failing to get through to these people, and countless others—including my father, and Kris and Lon and Nick—might suffer for it.

“What do you plan to do with me, then?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“You are to be a study specimen,” said Catrot.“From you we shall learn the exact nature of the new threat weface.From you we shall learn everything about your species—the better to destroy you.”

I wanted to drop to my knees at the sound of that.But I refused.However, they were going to “study” me, I planned to show my defiance in any way I possibly could, even if for the moment that meant just standing my ground.

I warned my captors, “Someone will come looking for me.”

“We will be prepared,” Neegan said.“And we will root out all of your weaknesses as we make ourselves ready to strike at the Soorns.Our retribution and our return to supremacy upon this planet are upon you.”

“But we’re not your enemies!” I shouted, wanting to pound my fists on the force field holding me prisoner.“I’m the only human who even knows you exist!You have no reason to hate us; we’re not the ones who took this planet from you!Neegan, I promise you; you have nothing to fear from us!My people know nothing about you!We don’t mean you any harm!”

Neegan and Catrot turned and left the room, no doubt to confer with some of their other former hibernators about what they would do next.Feeling utterly helpless, I sank to my knees in my confined space and watched them go.

My thoughts turned to Kris and Nick and Lon.I wondered what happened to them.Had they been hurt, trying to protect me up above from a danger that they never could have guessed?Would they come down here looking for me now, and what would happen to them if they did?I thought about them coming after me, having no idea what they were heading into.I had no way to warn my three brave, beautiful, handsome wolf guards.I tried to fight it but couldn’t stop the fear from wrapping around my heart.

I thought about my father, who had to be up there now, commanding our people in the defense of Lycia—and nodoubt trying to push his own fears and worries about me to the back of his mind.Not knowing what had happened to me must be killing him, I knew.And I was just as powerless to get any word out to Daddy as I was to the guys.

And what was happening to Melanie?The last time I saw her, she was recovering from being stressed-out from panic.When we last spoke, I actually objected to her insinuation that I was too naive and sheltered to take care of myself without Canis Guards to watch over me.Well, now I had the opportunity to prove that I wasn’t so naïve, and I wasn’t so sheltered and clueless—and I had no idea what to do next.

How ironic was it that as a prisoner I was probably safer than all the people that I cared about?

CHAPTER 16

Lon

Kris and I became a couple of sneaks, putting a hasty plan into action.

When more wounded with multiple injuries were brought into the surgical area of the infirmary, we made our move.There was a table in the recovery area where Nick and others were; it had some sedative wands on it, being charged.When the announcement of the incoming wounded had all the medtechs scrambling, Kris and I were asked to leave.On our way out, I lifted one of those wands when no one was looking.I used the wand to knock out the last medic left to watch the recovery area while she was checking charts on the computer.We took her access strip, a little carbon-silicon wafer containing a passcode, and used it to get into the storage room where the infirmary was keeping people’s uniforms.We found and grabbed Nick’s uniform, then went and helped Nick out of bed and got ourselves out of there.All the activity with the wounded would keep the medtechs busy and cover our quick exit.

Our next stop was the underground tunnels to Canis Guard supply rooms, garages, and hangars, which we were trained to know.They were empty because all available personnel were deployed on the surface or guarding other areas, including the access portal to these tunnels where we already were.We ducked into a supply room, where Nick got back into uniform and Kris and I took some critical equipment.

We got what we needed, then I noticed that Nick was holding a hand to his head and leaning against a wall of shelves with his eyes closed.“Nick,” I called, with a feeling like asquirming puppy inside, “are you okay?”If we’d snuck him out of bed too soon, this plan of ours was about to be like a log over a waterfall, plunging to a crash.

Nick didn’t open his eyes.He said, “I will be in a minute.I have to be.These anti-traumatics they gave me, they make you want to stay still even when you have to move.I just need a minute to get my mind and body back into sync.I’ve got this damn dizzy spell.”

“Look,” I said, “Kris and I can finish what we started.You don’t have to go; we know what we have to do.You can get back to the infirmary; tell ‘em you made a stupid mistake, and…”

Now he snapped his eyes open and gave me a feral, angry look, as if he’d go to wolf form and go right for my throat.“Hell no!Who the hell is the commanding officer here?We’re doing this.I’m doing this!Tara was taken on my watch.It’s my duty.She’s my duty.We’re going ahead and I’m leading this mission; end of discussion.”He straightened up, shook his head, and changed before our eyes back into our leader—confident, sure, and determined.Something about the idea of not going, of not following through with the plan, had whipped him back into shape.“Now,” he said, “let’s get moving.”

Without any further discussion, we charged out of there and headed back for that corridor where we had almost gotten Tara to the Regency bunker.

The supplies we took from that room were a light drone and some gripping gauntlets with artificial carbon-alloy claws.The gauntlets were designed for climbing up and down walls; the claws could make gripping holds in stone and in metals and compounds less durable than a spaceship’s hull.There were other special materials in their palms and fingers that could enable a climber to cling to a surface and go up and down walls like an insect.But we weren’t insects; we were wolves, and we were on the move.

We came to the jagged edge of that hole in the floor where we lost Tara.We took our torch disks and fixed them to the tops of our uniforms, then activated the light drone, set it to descend slowly, and sent it over the hole.Casting a glow around its edges and from its underside, it dropped into the blackness of that vicious opening.With the drone and our torch disks lighting our way, the three of us went to the rough edges of the hole and, using our gauntlets, started to climb down the inner surface, gouging into it with the artificial claws, gripping and clinging to it as we went.

Moving down that rough pit wall, I tried to guess what kind of power the Soorns had used to make this hole.The energy output of whatever they used must have been monstrous.Perhaps it was some kind of sonic weapon that could dissolve solid matter.That would account for the shaking of the tunnel structure before the hole was blasted out.That was how I kept myself from seeing Tara’s face:her bright eyes looking at me, showing her intelligence, her warmth, her humor—and her desire.And her golden hair, flowing over her shoulders, fluttering in the breeze as she rode her melobeast.And so many other things about her, in other places, in other situations:in the shower that day, in that loft, in her room…Keep your mind on what you’re doing! I snapped at myself.This might seem like a solid pit wall, and it might be so—but hit one weak spot, one spot where the rock crumbles.That’s all it’ll take for you to be in trouble as bad as Tara might be.

Focusing my mind was how I distracted myself from worrying about her, about what the Soorns might be doing to her.The idea of them hurting Tara, or torturing her, instead of just using her as leverage against us, was worse than any danger we might be up against.Nothing should ever be done to Tara—except holding her, kissing her, doing the kinds of things we did…Again, my mind was straying where it shouldn’t go rightnow.Focus!FOCUS!Don’t think about how important Tara is, not just as a Princess, not just as the person our duty says we have to protect.Don’t think about the importance of Tara herself, how essential she’s become in so short a time.It was only a few days we’d known her, but in that space of days, she had become the thing that mattered more than anything else.The only way to deal with our fears about her was to concentrate on whatever we had to do to get to her.

The drone, which descended into the hole at the same rate as we climbed down along the wall of the pit, showed that right below us was a stony surface, somewhat uneven but level enough to stand on.That meant we’d soon reach the place where this pit opened out into a cavern.Nick called, “Go to wolf shape now!”Immediately, we all morphed.In our other bodies, we’d need our heightened senses and increased strength and reflexes to handle whatever might be waiting for us down there, whether it was the tentacle droid we’d faced before, or something else, including the Soorns themselves.

Sure enough, we soon found ourselves hanging by our artificial claws down into a vast cavern where rocks and boulders were strewn about and there were stony pillars formed by stalactites and stalagmites that had grown together.The thought of Tara being dragged down here gave me a sick, shuddery feeling.This was too cruel and coldlooking a place for her.It was fit for the Soorns, but not for the Princess.

We all assessed the distance between where we were hanging and the cavern floor.It looked like a dangerous drop for a human, but luckily we had swapped out our human shapes.Nick called, “Count of three, disengage claws!One…two…three!”

At Nick’s call, we all released our grip on the stone surface where we were hanging and dropped down from there to the stony place beneath us.More like panthers than wolves, we hitthe cavern floor feet first and fell into crouching positions, then rolled until we came to a stop, each of us just a few feet from the others.We stayed still for a moment.The space was lit by the drone, which had settled onto a slightly inclined surface of rock nearby.Disregarding how eerie everything was, I looked over to check how Nick was doing.

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