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  Terry stood, looking around for his clothes. Char pointed at nearby bushes. “I could have sworn I left them on the ground,” he pondered, running the few steps to grab his camouflage uniform.

  When he finished dressing, he found Char leaning against a stump and watching him. She was still naked. “It’s been awhile, TH. I’m going to go hunt,” she told him. One second later, she was a magnificent wolf with a sleek brown pelt and silver belly fur. She bared her fangs at him, lips pulled back in a dog smile, then turned and loped away.

  “Don’t get hurt,” he whispered. He checked his rifle and his gear, then grabbed the nearest saddled horse and swung aboard. He pointed the animal’s nose in the direction Char had gone and spurred it forward.

  Char quickly outpaced the horse, sprinting, reveling in her own strength as she blasted through the grasses of the field.

  Terry thought he knew what she was running after. He wasn’t sure if she could take down a buffalo all by herself. He was hoping her prey was a deer.

  That idea was quickly dashed when he saw the small herd of buffalo ahead. There were no calves. She is going after an adult. Terry urged his horse to greater speed until it galloped, and even then, it was barely able to keep pace with the Werewolf.

  Char never slowed as she ran straight into the middle of the herd.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mark found that he almost had to body block people to keep them from turning where they’d turned for the previous week. They had their heads down and were soldiering on. Today’s route was different and even though he’d already told them, they were on autopilot.

  The new route would take them about five miles out of town. They’d turn at a stream where they could get a drink, and then they’d be free to make it back on their own.

  The Force was spread along the route to help people and keep them moving. Mark had them run back and forth so the townspeople would not see the Force as overlords, but as comrades on a tough journey.

  Which was what they would be, but perception could become reality.

  Mark didn’t want to give them any grist for the mill. So the people walked, the Force walked, Clyde walked, and so did Hank. The bear had become a crowd favorite, although Blackbeard wouldn’t let anyone get too close to the grizzly. Hank was still a wild animal, although Blackie had to admit that the beast liked people, because everyone he met was nice to him.

  The day’s efforts took longer than planned, but the farmers hadn’t been that far outside the town in forever. They hadn’t had the time to be away from their greenhouses and fields, so getting out was like a vacation for them.

  Who would have known that the daily conditioning walks would be the social event of the season?

  Mark walked with Billy and Felicity. He felt like he was their personal security, even though no one in New Boulder was a threat to them.

  The Force sergeant standing at the mayor’s side. Maybe he felt like it was a partnership between the military and civilians who ran the town. Although the colonel and the major had tried to explain the separation of power, no one understood it or why it was necessary.

  To Mark, it made perfect sense to be walking at Billy’s side. They talked about everything and nothing. Mark even took a turn carrying the baby. He could tell from Felicity’s discomfort while walking that she would be unhappy for the duration of the move. Mark wondered how he could manage that. They had to keep the spirits of the people up, so he couldn’t have the mayor’s wife casting a dark cloud over the town.

  Hank ran past the small group that had clumped together with Blackie hot on his tail. The grizzly cub swerved and disappeared into the brush, shortly reappearing halfway up a small tree.

  Billy watched it all. “I’ll be damned. I didn’t know they could climb trees.”

  Felicity shook her head.

  “Good thing he’s on our team, eh, Mayor?” Mark added.

  ***

  Char picked the smallest, a cow that looked to be nearly five feet tall at the shoulder. She rammed into the thing’s side, hoping to knock it off balance to get a better angle to the animal’s neck.

  She only bounced off, but quickly recovered for a second attack.

  The bulls weren’t too keen on having a Werewolf in their midst. As Char crouched to pounce, a two-thousand-pound bull rammed her and threw her into the air. Her cry of pain ended when she landed on another buffalo, frightening a cow. As it bolted, she rolled to avoid getting stepped on. The bull pawed at the ground as it eyed her.

  Adrenaline surged through Terry. He crouched low over his horse’s neck and turned its head as it approached the herd. He dove off, cradling his weapon as he rolled and came up running.

  Char was crawling backwards to get away from the bull. Terry pulled his whip and cracked it as he ran, trying to get in between Char and the angry animal.

  Chaos as the herd scattered. The first cow that Char attacked ran at Terry, her eyes wide in panic. He dodged as it passed. He cracked the whip in front of the bull’s nose to get its attention. It didn’t budge. Its eyes were focused on Char.

  He snapped the whip against its head. The great beast snorted and tore the ground as it turned and plowed toward its attacker. Terry slid to a halt, fumbling with his left hand to get his rifle up. The charging bull was too fast. With all the strength in his enhanced legs, Terry jumped straight up. He cleared the bull easily, but the bull had stepped on the end of his whip. Terry didn’t let go and was yanked onto the creature’s back. He bounced off it, finally letting go and flopping into the dirt. With his right hand free, he rolled to a prone position, aimed, and prepared to fire, but the bull was finished. It continued running toward the rest of the herd.

  Terry stood stiffly and jogged to where Char, still in Were form, lay panting. He looked her over, happy to see little blood, but knew the pile-driver she took in the side had injured her greatly. She changed into her human self, wincing as she ran a hand down her purpling ribs.

  She stretched her arms over her head, grunting with the effort. Her ribs were misshapen and clearly broken, but as Terry watched, they stretched back into place, the purple darkened and then lightened until the bruises disappeared in entirety.

  “Holy shit!” Neither one had been hurt badly since the day they killed the boar hog.

  Char flexed and twisted. “Good as new,” she said, turning slightly to strike a demure yet alluring pose for her husband.

  “Holy shit!” Terry reiterated. He liked what he was looking at, but he wasn’t happy with the risk she’d taken. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “Heal?” Char asked innocently.

  “Yes, that’s what I meant,” Terry said coldly, but he couldn’t stay angry. He hugged her naked body and whispered into her ear. “I can’t lose you, Char.”

  “My feelings, exactly,” she replied, biting his neck.

  ***

  James, Lacy, Gerry, Kiwi, and Ted rode four horses up the street. Kiwi was not armed with a rifle, but she carried the ad hoc sword that had cut her arm. She considered it her prize, earned in combat with an enemy. It was part of her native tradition to carry the souvenirs of your enemy’s weapons into battle, and she carried it with pride.

  Gerry had even made a scabbard out of untanned deer hide.

  Ted urged his horse into a trot and the others followed suit. They were heading northwest to where Ted knew the rest of the pack was located. He’d find the wolves and see if he could learn about the people who attacked one of the pack. James said he wanted to talk with these people, but no one believed that.

  They were all angry. One of their friends had been wounded and they sought revenge.

  Ted was the angriest of all. His jaw was set and eyes narrowed as he scanned the way ahead. His senses were on high alert as he took the group unerringly toward the pack, now nine members strong while the injured animal found his way back to the power plant, staying there after his treatment. Ted hoped the young male wasn’t chewing out his stitches. He’d told him not to.
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br />   But he was a wolf.

  Ted led them into an urban forest. Trees were heavily overgrown, pushing out houses and other structures. The wolf pack was gathered under a large tree, but they weren’t laying down. It was like they were waiting.

  Ted waved a hand, and they trotted away.

  He motioned for the others to follow.

  They continued through the forest, through more urban sprawl, and then started across an open field. The wolf pack stopped. On the far side was a house with a tendril of smoke coming from the chimney. High stone walls surrounded the building.

  They’d been traveling for hours and that explained why the crazies that attacked the FDG hadn’t made their way out this far, but the wolf pack had gotten here by following game.

  Ted became even angrier thinking about the injured wolf who walked all the way back to the plant.

  The poor creature must have been in agony.

  Ted screamed in rage and spurred his mount forward. The others on horseback galloped across the field. Kiwi hung on tightly as Gerry leaned low over his horse’s mane. As usual, he rode to the side of the main group, preferring to be in a place where he could see ahead, riding freely to respond if needed.

  He was the best horseman of the group.

  And he didn’t mind that Kiwi hugged him tightly.

  Ted pulled the reins back on his horse, making the animal buck as it slid to a stop. He jumped off and started yelling for the people to come out.

  “Fuck off!” someone yelled gruffly from inside the small compound.

  “You hurt my wolf and now I’m going to hurt you, asshat!” the usually sedate Ted yelled back.

  “That’ll entice him to come out,” James told Lacy in a low voice, but Ted heard him, whirling and glaring at James.

  Lacy adjusted as James froze. “Let’s find out what happened, Ted,” Lacy offered. Ted grit his teeth, then turned away from the compound, swinging his arms angrily.

  Lacy climbed down and made a wide arc around the Werewolf.

  “Hello!” she called. James followed her, holding his rifle across his arms, thumb on the selector lever.

  Gerry climbed down as well and stayed to Lacy’s side. The group approached a rough door set into the wall, aware that they looked threatening.

  “We just want to know what happened. It looked like somebody took an axe to our friend. There must have been a reason,” she called out, hoping that her feminine voice would disarm those inside.

  “He went after our cattle! We can’t afford to lose no more seeing as we only got three left,” an older voice called.

  Ted sighed heavily and walked toward the pack. They laid down in the field as Ted reached them. He leaned down and scratched some ears as he talked to them in a way that only he understood. When Ted turned back to the compound, he nodded, hanging his head and slumping his shoulders.

  Revenge didn’t look so tasty.

  ***

  “This sucks!” someone said from up ahead. Billy craned his neck trying to see who said it. There seemed to be a small skirmish, then more people joined as sides were chosen and people waded into the fray.

  Billy started running. Felicity shook her head and adjusted the blanket keeping the sun off Marcie. She slowed to a stop and watched from where she was.

  Mark ran after Billy, catching him easily, then staying close to his side. Mark didn’t want the mayor in the middle of a brawl.

  When they arrived, that was exactly what they found: twenty or thirty people rolling around, throwing poorly aimed punches, grabbing and yelling. Someone got bit. There was howling and crying.

  “Just fucking stop!” Billy yelled. His fists were clenched and he looked like he wanted to get into the middle of it. Mark put a hand on his arm to hold him back. Billy glared at him. “Well? Do your fucking job!”

  Mark wasn’t sure what that meant, because the colonel had never mentioned anything about riot control.

  The people hadn’t been in a position to riot before. Maybe they’d grown comfortable in their lives and this was their external manifestation of their anxiety over leaving New Boulder behind.

  Mark had no idea about the philosophy of anxiety. All he knew was that he had just been made responsible for stopping the fight.

  “Fuck it,” Mark said, jacking a round into the chamber and shooting into the air. Ammunition wasn’t that easy to come by, but the reloads that Adams and Xandrie had made helped a little. The gunpowder they provided smoked to high heaven, always throwing a huge white cloud from the rifle.

  Just like a blunderbuss.

  The people slowed but didn’t stop. Punches kept flying. Mark fired one more time and then re-slung the weapon over his back. He looked for other members of the Force, but found himself alone.

  “Fuck it,” he repeated. He grabbed two people who were rolling around on the ground. One was from the third greenhouse and one from the last. The woman from number three bit him as he pulled her to her feet. He punched her in the head and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. The man who had been fighting her yelled and took a swing.

  “Watch it, dickweed!” Mark growled, tripping the man and shoving him back to the ground. Mark waded farther into the fray, randomly punching people as he passed.

  At the middle of it all, Mark found Pepe and Ernie, the farmer who ran the third greenhouse. He grabbed them both by their collars and leaned into them, grinding their faces into the dirt until they let go of each other.

  Then stars exploded before Mark’s eyes and the last thing he remembered was falling over the two men he held on the ground.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Okay, your way,” Char conceded. They were both on their horses and Char used her Werewolf sense to locate the herd of buffalo. Terry would try to bring down the small cow with his rifle, unsure if it had enough knock-down power. She scoffed, and he accepted the challenge. She made sure her pistols were ready, because they wouldn’t leave a wounded animal.

  Once the first shot was taken, the animal would have to die. Terry wanted it to be clean, limit the beast’s suffering. Char wouldn’t say it, but she felt like she’d failed. She thought that she should have been able to kill a cow in her enhanced state.

  But she didn’t even make a dent. She was stronger, but was she worse off?

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “About what?” Terry asked.

  “Not being able to bring the cow down. We should be cleaning it right now, getting it ready so we don’t go hungry the rest of the trip. Am I losing my edge, TH?” Char wondered.

  “Bullshit!” he exclaimed. “Bad tactics, that’s all. Overconfidence. You tried to body slam a one thousand pound animal, probably not the first thing you should have tried.”

  Terry started to laugh, thinking about how Char bounced off the buffalo, but reality slapped him in the face when he had seen the bull charge into her. He wanted both vengeance and to show that sometimes prey is still prey, even if they won a battle.

  Char just wanted to eat.

  “Let’s go kill us a buffalo,” he said, looking serious and kicking his horse into action. Char rode with Terry to round up the other horses that they’d left behind.

  When Char was in her own saddle, pulling the second horse, Terry’s horse trotted in the direction that Char pointed. Over a rise and into a small valley they rode until coming across the small herd grazing within a stand of short trees. Terry circled to get the best view, keeping the wind toward his front as best he could.

  He dismounted slowly, walked a few steps, and took a knee. He aimed into the shadows, walking the front sight post of his rifle past the buffalo until he found one at the right angle. He couldn’t count on shooting behind the front leg. The round may not penetrate, so he decided on a head shot, but a buffalo’s head was low to the ground, with a great deal of bone in the skull.

  The cow ripped up a mouthful of grass and chewed, not knowing that its fate had been determined.

  Terry exhaled and squeezed. The rifle buck
ed and the herd jumped at the noise. Terry fired another round, then another, before jumping up and running at the cow. Char sat with the other horse a hundred yards farther away.

  “My turn,” she said. She leapt from her saddle and tore her clothes off, changing into Were form while running after Terry Henry.

  TH had no intention of taking on the herd. He only wanted to get close enough to take a shot or six, try to get one to penetrate to the beast’s heart. The cow was stunned, but the bulls were prancing and not running off.

  Terry took a position behind a tree trunk and braced the rifle against the bark as he aimed. He didn’t have an angle at the shoulder, so he fired repeatedly at the cow’s head.

  It dropped to its front knees, settled to the ground, and flopped onto its side. Terry waited, watching the bulls who weren’t moving. Sleek brown fur ran by him and into the woods.

  Char danced around the much larger buffalo and enticed them to chase her. They had no chance of catching her and as long as she was running, they weren’t a threat. She led them away, then reappeared after Terry made sure his target was dead. He didn’t like the fact that it took him ten shots to do it, but looking at the quantity of meat they’d get, the round per pound was a good trade-off.

  A Werewolf stood next to TH. They both looked at the buffalo. Terry turned back to Char, waiting for her to change back because he didn’t mind seeing her naked, but she remained a Werewolf.

  She dipped her muzzle toward the cow.

  “What? You want me to cut out some choice bits for you, is that it?”

  She nodded, then pointed her nose back to the cow. He scratched behind Char’s ears and kissed her hairy forehead. He held her face and looked into her purple eyes, watching them dilate as she looked back.