RELAY - Wolves of the New World

[MrsBrooke]

Providence enjoyed the breeze playing across her skin as goosebumps rose on her flesh. "What a lovely night," she purred and snuggled closer to Riker.

He smiled and brushed away a strand of hair that fell along her cheek. "Mmhmm," he contentedly agreed.

She felt his muscles go on high alert as he twisted around and peered into the trees surrounding them. Their lover's chase ended on the banks of a small pond a few miles away from the rest of the group back at their home. The world was still drenched in navy, but the faint butter yellow of sunrise peeked over the horizon. Providence saw a young women break through the line of trees and plunge headfirst in the pond. She watched the girl floundering in desperation to swim to the middle of the water.

Providence immediately recognized the scent of a wounded animal. The skin on the back of her neck rose. This is too close for comfort, she thought as the girl got closer to the center of the pool.

A second figure emerged from the tree line as the girl vanished under the surface of the water. All that was left were ripples on the stillness of the water reflecting the stars.

Riker was on his feet before Providence could think as the wild man crash through the undergrowth running full-tilt for the water. "Get the girl," Riker snarled and began circling around the pond toward the man.

---

Rayne wasn't sure what happened next. She sensed, rather than felt, the woman that grabbed her and lifted her from the bottom of the pond. Rayne realized she hadn't taken a breath for a while, but she was too sleepy and tired to worry about it. Even the initial-shock of the freezing water had worn off, and the darkness creeping over her was like a warm and welcoming blanket. All she needed to do was yawn and she could finally sleep.

The surface of the water broke, and the cruelness of the night air was made apparent. Rayne's instinctual reflex-gasp was like shards of glass in her lungs. She hacked and coughed and choked as the women dragged her with one arm towards the bank. Rayne felt like she was a rag doll in the woman's arms as she was scooped from the water and carried to a grassy clearing.

Providence could tell that the girl was slipping in and out of consciousness, dream-dancing between two very different worlds. There were puncture wounds on the woman's shoulder. The pattern was unmistakable.

Riker was about to collide with the wild man, who had caught his scent and turned to face him. Providence, from across the water, could hear very well what was being said.

"And who are you, boy?" the man snapped as Riker approached.

"This is my territory. You've got ten seconds to high-tail it back the way you came, stranger."

"Big talk for a young wolf." The man's eyes gleamed in the moonlight. "That's my hunt your woman stole from me. Once I'm done with you, I'll finish what I started." Casting a glace back over to Providence, he added, "And maybe dessert, too."

Riker made a sound between a bark and a laugh. "Come at her that way, and Providence is anything but sweet."

"Provid--?" the man started. He didn't have time to finish before a huge black wolf was on him, fangs deep in his shoulder and chest.

The man screamed like a dying animal and went down. He almost didn't have enough time to complete his change. Already wounded, the man was slow. Too slow.

Riker tore him to pieces, worrying him this way and that, biting and snapping, tearing and rending.

Finally, the man had no more strength and collapsed, sinking back into his human form. His flesh was bruised and bloodied. Sinking to the ground, he held tight to his useless right arm.

Riker melted back into his human form and pinned the man to the ground. "Who are you? Who sent you? Why are you chasing that girl?"

The man gargled and coughed as red began pooling in the corners of his mouth. "It was a job! It was just a job!"

"A job?" Riker pressed his forearm against the man's throat. "Who hired you? Why?"

The man grimaced and gagged. "Boss did. Boss told me that the brat and her family had to die. PLEASE, DON'T KILL ME."

"WHY?!" Riker roared.

"Her dad lost all Boss's money! In the crash! He was a bank guy and lost all the money!"

Riker blinked. Whoever this Boss was had wolves working for him, at the very least, and it was all tied up in the recent economic crash. Certain things now needed to be taken into consideration. He looked over his shoulder at Providence and the girl on the other side of the pond. He could tell that the girl was unconscious, but alive, and he was able to hear the slow-and-steady heartbeat of his wife. It was a small comfort.

"I didn't know there were other wolves here. I didn't know this was someone's territory! I'll leave and never say a word about this to anyone!" The man was starting to slur his words, and Riker could tell by the growing pool of blood under him that one of his bites caught an artery. The man's eyes were slowly glazing over. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... So.... so.... sorry."

The quiet lapping of the water at the edge of the small pond was the only sound now. The man's heart had stopped. Riker bowed his head, uttered a few words over the man's body, stood and made his way over to Providence and this odd, leather-clad young woman.

"She's out cold, but alive," Providence said without taking her eyes off the girl. "She's been bitten."

Riker took a deep breath and nodded. "I see."

"Looks like this one's been on quite a journey," she said motioning to burns, bruises, bumps, and blood on her skin and clothing. Providence sat back on her haunches and sighed. "We can't just leave her."

"Provi, we can't take in strays. We can't take on the responsibility of raising a pup at a time like this."

Providence was quiet. "The odds are, she'll die before her first Change. I'm not sure she's even strong enough to regain consciousness. Regardless, everyone deserves a chance at life, no matter what that life is. If we didn't want the responsibility, we never should have gotten involved and let the other wolf kill her."

Riker clenched his teeth. He knew Providence was right. The moment he stood up and went to face the woman's attacker, he knew they'd become involved. "Okay, then." He stooped and scooped her up like she weight nothing at all.

A silver wolf was by his side in an instant, and Riker carefully laid Rayne across Providence's back for the journey back to the cabin.



((I will flesh out the backstory surrounding Rayne's father and his dealings in the banking industry as well as Boss and his werewolf Mafia.

Onward!!!!

MrsB))

 

[LoveThatChick]

Shortly after Blaze's overloaded mind fell into a deep sleep that he dearly needed, the dream sequences that had been coming to him for almost three months, which were made up of his twisted and skewed memories, began the same as they always did...

Blaze sat on the edge of a russet colored rock face, his legs dangling over the grassland far below, bare feet tingling with exhilaration every time he looked down. He was seven, and his shoulder length, normally dark brown hair was streaked with gold from long exposer to the harsh sun, which now hung low as it started its course through the clear blue sky.

It was oddly silent; no birds calling, no rustle of grasses.... Just the low hiss of wind, like the whispers of a thousand hushed voices. When he awakened, he would recognized it - the ominous echoes. But not while in the dream; no, young Blaze never noticed.

He looked over the edge again, "Papa, Papa!" He called to his father below, who was climbing up the rock face to meet him, no ropes or harnesses, just like Blaze had. His father looked up at his son's words, a smile playing across his handsome features. But his eyes were vacant.

"Look, Papa. There's a Vulture!" Blaze called, pointing with both hands to out above the grassland where the dark scavenger circled. His father did not answer, but hung by the finger tips of one hand so that he could turn and look, then his empty eyes found his son again, the same smile on his lips as he continued to climb.

The rocks began to shake and to come loose under the his fathers hands and feet, the vibration stretching through the entire rock face.

"Papa! PAPA! Climb faster, the rocks are going to give way!" Blaze yelled, scrambling to his hands and knees on the edge, and leaning over as if he could reach down and pull his father to safety. His own safety was of no concern as fear raced through him. His father couldn't fall.

The handsome man below looked up to his young son once more, eyes vacant, lips silent and smiling. The rock face then gave way.

"NO!" Blaze screamed as the man fell, the cliff crumbling around him until only the square of rock he knelt on remained, suspended in space. Tears began to pool in his light eyes, falling as his small piece of earth began to float away into the darkening sky, black clouds now forming, obscuring the lightening morning sky. It wasn't long before he was completely enveloped in the black clouds; icy and thick, and growing thicker and heavier with every instant and every inch he rose.

Suddenly, he was under ice blue water. His skin burned with its cold, and he felt it pulling him down stream, fast. His fingers scrabbled across the slick stones of the river bottom, unable to find perches and unable to push himself up. His lungs screamed, and his mind fogged, the cold and lack of oxygen beginning to shut his system down. Then, he broke the surface.

He was pulled roughly onto the icy bank by the collar of his snow jacket, coughing and shaking violently. The same eerie absents of ambient sound that had been present in the last scene still held, so only the wind could be heard; whispering. He rolled onto his side, spluttering.

Blaze was about thirteen now, on his first expedition in the Arctic, the bleak landscape stretching out around him. His blurry eyes caught site of his father, watching him from a distance. Why wasn't he approaching, trying to help, seeing if his son was safe? Blaze could barely control his motor-functions by now, but he was able to roll over onto his back. The person who had pulled him from the water was standing over him, silent, unrecognizable with his snow gear and goggles obscuring his features, but... he was somehow familiar. Blaze slipped into unconsciousness as hypothermia set in.

When his eyes opened once more, he was looking up through the cool green of the forest canopy above, dappled light shining through. It was his sixteenth birthday, and high in the Redwood forest he sat, harness on and fashioned further up the tree. He was at least three stories off the ground, his right arm in a cast after braking it in three places while spelunking in Argentina four months ago.

"Come on up, you slow-poke!" Blaze called to his father on the ground, but the warm smile which had lit his face vanished the moment he looked down and relieved what was happening. Wolves were encircling his father, who did not seem to take any notice as they began to growl, the sound breaking through the empty silence with force. The wolves were huge, strangely configured, and... unnatural in some way. The light was fading fast from the sky, turning to a dusky red. Like that of blood.

"Dad! Get up here, now!" He yelled, adrenaline sending his heart into overdrive. But the man did not seem to hear the urgency of his son's tone, and smiled up at him. And for the first time, he spoke. "It's alright, Blaze, everything will be fine. Why don't you come down? I have some friends I'd like you too meet. Don't worry, they won't bite." His tone was smooth, calm and relaxed, and his smile was bright. But still, his eyes held no life.

Blaze could not believe what was happening. Had his father gone mad?! Those were wolves! But then the tree seemed to shudder slightly, and it began to tip. Caught off guard, he began to fall from it. He reached for the line which succored his to it, but it was no longer there.

He fell. The ground rushed up to meet him in a blur, the wolves directly below, jaws wide, laughing.

Blaze woke with a jolt. He blinked a few times in the darkness, then pushed himself into a sitting position. Obviously the sun had not yet risen, though through the window he could see a faint trace of pink on the horizon. His dream had been different than the usual. For one thing, that was not where it usually ended, and for another, there was the addition of the wolves. It really didn't make sense to him, both the wolves and waking from it so early on. The memory of the large, rust colored, so-called dog swam into his thoughts, and he decided that they must have come from there, being that he'd thought it looked sorta like a wolf.

With a sigh, he slipped quietly from the bed and readied himself to head down stairs once he heard others up. The flour creaked slightly as he overbalanced while trying to pull the second leg of his jeans on in the dark, and he had to catch himself on the wall by the window so that he did not fall. He finished pulling on the jeans, then looked quickly out the window; out in the field, by the woods, there was movement. He had to squint to see the forms in the darkness as one, low, large one, and one, that was obviously a human form approached with speed. He pressed his face closer to the cold glass as the dark figures neared back of the house, but just as they were going to step into the light, his breath fogged up the glass and they were obscured. By the time he'd cleared it away with his sleeve, he could just make out that out of the two, now obviously human figures in the light, one of them was carrying something, something that looked oddly like...

"A girl?!" he breathed sharply in surprise as the two figures come swiftly onto back porch. It was the couple, and the man, Ricker, had a girl in his arms. A wet, red substance on her thin frame caught in the light for a moment before they disappeared into the house though the back door. And she's covered in blood?! What the-

His thoughts were cut off as a crash came from the floor below, what sounded like a bark echoed up, then Chester's alarmed tone sounded, though Blaze couldn't make out the words. He looked around sharply as he heard someone racing past his door towards the stairs. Guessing that it was Jessica, he turned and moved quickly to the door. It was locked.

He nocked hard on it, slamming the flat of his hand against the hard wood, hoping she'd hear and let him out. She did hear.

"Ah, kinda busy here, Blaze!" She snapped in a harried, high pitch tone, managing to sound condescending at the same time.

"Come on, let me out of here, I can help!" He replied quickly, almost shouting, and leaning heavily against the door as if he could somehow push it open with sheer will.

Jessica was confused, which was something she didn't like being. "What do you mean, 'help'?!"

Blaze was getting frustrated now, "I saw them out the window, Providence and Ricker, they came out of the woods, and they had a girl with them. They're down stairs with her now, and she's hurt, badly!"

This was all news to Jessica, having just woken up herself. Through, in her half asleep state, she thought he meant that he'd seen the two in their wolf forms. She wasn't a morning person. "Okay, fine!" She huffed, moving fluidly to the door, fishing the key from her oversized, and not completely buttoned up, flannel shirt, and shoved it into the luck. With a metallic 'click' and 'thunk' the door was open.

"Why'd you lock me in?" Blaze asked quickly as he pulled the door open and stepped out.

Jessica rolled her eyes, running a hand back through her wildly tangled, fire-red hair. But the affect was lost on Blaze, as it was too dark to she anything clearly. "Couldn't have you getting up at in the wee-hours and robbing us blind, now could we?" She asked, once again heading for the stairs.

"Ah... No, guess not." Blaze blushed, feeling stupid for not thinking about the fact that they couldn't really trust him yet. Lucky, it was too dark for her to see his embarrassment as well as hear it.

Jessica let a long, low breath escape her slowly as she took the stairs two at a time, Blaze right behind her as the now hushed, but agitated voices from those in the kitchen reached their ears. "Well, at least you're not freaking out about this whole this. Most are hysterical by this point, you must be in shock or something." She said offhandedly as they headed for the lit kitchen, commenting on his lack of emotion towards supposedly discovering that they were werewolves.

Blaze, having not actually seen the couple in their wolf forms, assumed that she was talking about the bloodied girl. "No, I don't get freaked out about this type of thing." He replied reassuringly as she entered the kitchen ahead of him, adding, though she didn't hear it, "I have a lot of medical experience from years of fixing things when there isn't a hospital for miles, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest."