Page 2 of Lost and Pound

Chapter Two

Nico

I had woken with a pounding headache, stumbling through six inches of snow on the side of a deserted highway. I was still in wolf form, my paws crunching in twice-frozen snow.

I coughed and blood sprayed from my mouth onto the crystalline scape, smattering it in a Rorschach shape.

From this angle?I tilted my head, the muscles uncooperative.Looks like a dick and balls.

It didn’t really, but my mind was in tatters, and when I tried to shift, an ice pick of pain went through my brain, drawing forth another cough and spray. Another Rorschach—I glanced down at it, squinting as it swayed in double vision. A million stars blanketing a dark sky, or a flock of birds taking flight.

Yeah. Birds.

I stumbled a few steps and the clank of a chain drug through the snow. At the end of it? I stared down as the frozen, stiff, and hacked end of a human hand lay clutched to the end.

Nope! Fuck!

A jagged shard of yellow bone stuck out amid flesh almost black. The skin pale and white, blue gray in other areas. It stank of wolf, one not of my pack. A Silvermoon.

I didn’t think, just ran, yelping through the snow. It seemed like a reasonable thing for my wolf to do, but the sensible part of me screamed for my inner beast to stop. No matter how hard I ran, dashing through the snow, that hand bounced along the ground, rattling the chain after me.

I screeched in panic until I ran face-first into the side of an overturned van, the one I’d been in.

The coppery, thick scent of blood met my nostrils. Piss and voided bowels. No heartbeats called to my ears. No scent of breath.

I wished I’d known what happened, but I was tired again, and a warm trickle from my snout graced my muzzle like a soft kiss.

The scent of human wafted about me, and I didn’t even have time to fall into the snow before I was carried off again, too tired to fight back.

I whimpered.

“Shh, buddy. You’ll be okay.”Sweet words lulled me amid chaos as I took in horror and flashing lights.

Doubt it.

***

The electronic buzzing of a lockout gate echoed over painted cinderblock.

An icy breeze whipped around my feet, making me curl and tuck them. The canvas cot beneath me that stank of dog piss creaked as I whimpered.

When I moved my head, the chain anchored to my neck rasped loudly against the concrete floor, still damp from the last time they blasted the floor with a cold hose.

Barking surrounded me, varying degrees of canid panic, childlike in its complexity. Something about domestication made dogs dumber. Happier, but dumber. Feral wolves could have entire conversations, complex discussions, and tame interactions.

Domesticated dogs?

Help! Scared! Kill you! Defend!

Varying degrees of threats of violence, declarations of fear, and hunger all cried out at once around me. Barring nothing else I could do, I raised a mournful howl as I periodically did, as I had much to say.

In my howl lay calming words, the ancient tongue of all things afraid.Calm yourselves, little ones. All will be well in this life and the beyond. This too shall pass.

Silence, blissful and sweet, came in response to my howl, but that was all the comfort it was, momentary silence. In minutes, another hopeful human would peruse through us all, looking from dog to dog, deciding which one it’d grant the reprieve from death. And eighty-seven dogs would respond in kind—pick me! I will love you!In the best way they knew how.

Wasn’t really an option for me. Every human that’d walked by had seen thewolf dogtag on my pen and passed me by. No sanctuaries in the state would take me. And nobody could get the collar off. I’d tried. Several others had tried. The metal, for all appearances, had been welded and the metal was too thick to cut without specialized tools. I should know—I’d sat there listening to one human after another puzzling over how I got into the damned thing.

Short of finding the appropriate tools—it’d take a sigma wolf to undo the seamless binding of the metal.

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