“Something has fucking happened.” His wolf pricked his ears and listened. “I’m right, aren’t I?” Yep, his wolf hearing confirmed the crackle of the wards were gone. “We’re free!”
He headed for the entrance where the eerie glow seemed brighter. Stepping out, Wes’s elation dimmed as hot air greeted him, smothering him like a blanket. A bleak landscape, all sand and rocks, stretched as far as he could see. Wes had no clue where he was. All he figured was he wasn’t on the earth realm anymore. It wasn’t possible for the lack of sun, moon, or night sky to cover such a huge area. Which meant, Wes didn’t have a fucking clue how he was going to get home. I don’t even know if anyone’s looking for me. His pack mates had probably assumed he’d been killed by the dark fuckers not long after he’d gone missing.
That simply means we’re on our own. Still, Wes hesitated, not that he or his wolf had a lot of options. Either he could sit down and wait for the food to run out, or he could look for a way to get home, or at least find another source of food and water. I’m not staying here. After spending goodness knows how long cooped up, Wes’s wolf was keen to stretch his legs and run, even in an alien landscape. Working quickly, Wes consolidated what little amount of provisions he had left into a couple of the storage containers the food originally arrived in. Two of them would easily fit into his shirt, which Wes bundled up into a make-shift pack for his wolf to carry.
Looking down at his feet, Wes winced at the state of his footwear. His boots, his wonderful, handmade-just-for-him boots were beyond redemption. With a sigh, he kicked them off. His tight-fitting pants he used to have to struggle to get on and off, dropped to the ground as soon as he undid the button. Wes tucked them into his make-shift pack.
Calling on his wolf, Wes allowed the shift to flow over him. Let’s see if we can find a way out of this hell hole. His wolf was so damn glad to get out of the cave.
/~/~/~/~/
Wes stopped, dropped his pack, and stared at the horizon. The only thing that changed about the view was different rock formations. He had no clue how long he had been traveling. Hours? Days? Nothing changed in this world. The glow stayed constant, night or day with no way of marking the passing hours. Whoever designed this hell hole gave no thought to anything beyond rocks and fucking sand.
Time had no meaning. Wes slept when he stopped, soaking his sand-rubbed paws in any water he could find. The different caves he found along the way, thank the Fates, had plenty of water, even if there wasn’t anything else. When the pain in his paws got to be too much, Wes shifted to his human form and pushed on, moving in one direction, driven to find a way home or at least somewhere that was something more than rocks and sand.
As the time passed, Wes got to the point where he wished the monsters that haunted his nightmares were real. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing in the realm but rocks and fucking sand. The only sounds that broke the silence were his feet hitting the sand, his breathing, or his wolf’s panting. The despair that hit him in the cave when he realized how stupid he’d been, got deeper as time marched on.
So, when Wes woke from a nap while soaking his paws to find he’d shifted, and he thought he heard a voice, his despair worsened. Hallucinations. Fucking hallucinations generated by his need to find his pack and the endless nothing of the place he was in. Wes didn’t bother getting up or taking his feet out of the pond. I’ll be seeing palm trees and sexy men running around in speedos next. Wes groaned. He’d come so far, and yet he’d gone nowhere at all. But the need to keep moving, to find something forced him to open his dust-caked eyes.
He blinked. There was a boy standing in front of him. Wes blinked again. The small thin blond boy who smelled like bear, who had dirt on his face, legs, and clothes, was still there. Wes blinked harder this time, trying to clear his mind of the tricks it was playing on him. But when he opened them again, the boy was still there. And then he spoke.
“Excuse me, Mister. Carrie fell off the rocks and got hurt. She’s got blood all over. Her arm is really bad. Can you help us?” The boy said politely.
Wes shot to his feet reaching for the boy. “Are you real?”
The boy jumped back and scowled. “Well, I’m not chopped liver.”
Wes held out his arms, palms up in supplication. “I’m sorry. It’s just I’ve been here for a long time without seeing another person except for those guys who put me here. And even they have been missing for a long time. Who are you? How did you get here?”
Chapter Two
“How did you all get here?” Wes was stunned. If he was having a hallucination, it was world class. He was in a house. An ordinary ranch house like one that could be found in any suburb anywhere. Couches. Chairs. A TV. A DVD player. A game console. All working, although where the power came from was anyone’s guess. Two scruffy little kids who smelled of wolf sat fascinated by the cartoon that was on.
“You’re shifters?” Wes asked when the boy didn’t answer his first question. Three cheetah cubs chased each other at high speed around the house, over and under furniture while a baby sloth hung on the couch and vocalized encouragement to the runners.
“More like lab rats. Our parents are all dead. They experimented on us so now we can shift,” The little blond said. He seemed to be the oldest of the seven kids Wes counted so far. “Look, can you help Carrie or not? She keeps crying and that upsets the younger kids. I’ve had enough of the tears to last me my lifetime since we got here. She won’t shift because it scares her even though I told her that it would fix her arm. She wanted her parents…” The boy paused a brief second before he changed it. “She wants an adult.”
Wes’s heart ached for the boy trying to sound so grownup. He suspected the crying also upset him, not that the boy would admit that to a stranger. How old would he be? Eight or nine? A kid. A kid or cub, who should be running with his friends. For a bear, the boy was pale and thin. Lack of sun and responsibility for the others would do that to a person.
Picking his way through the kids who ignored him, Wes followed the little bear down the hallway. Four bedrooms. Three had bunks and one hosted a huge king size bed. His wolf gazed longingly at it. A real bed. Not a nest in sand. His wolf let him know there were no scents connected to it. “Who uses that room? Do you have someone who takes care of you?”
“Someone was supposed to come to…” the boy hesitated. “Well, anyway. No one came. That was months ago, after they brought us here. Then they stopped coming.” He stepped into a bedroom with bunks. “Carrie, I told you I would find someone.”
Carrie sat in a corner of the room. She wiped her tears. “You found him. I’m so glad. It hurts.”
Deer. Wes’s wolf picked up on that immediately. Big soulful eyes filled with tears watched him. “Oh Frankie, you’re so smart.” Carrie’s bottom lip trembled. “I hurt. And I miss Mommy and Daddy so much.” Her sob escaped. “My arm hurts so bad. I need a hug. Frankie hugs good but I need a grownup hug.” Trembling lips, tear filled eyes, Wes was a goner.
Pulling himself out of the daze he had been in since he saw the house standing there, unreal against the landscape, Wes sank on the edge of the bed. The covers needed washing, but the bed was tidy enough, and besides it wasn’t as though Wes smelled good either. A rag doll was tucked in the corner of the covers and Wes got the impression that was the little bear’s doing. Patting the covers beside him, Wes gestured for Carrie to come to him. “Let’s look at your arm, honey. I’ll see if I can make it better.”