Angel in Spikes - The Werewolf War
Smashwords eBook Edition
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2011 by Aaron Pery
ISBN #978-1-4657-2719-0
License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Angel in Spikes - The Werewolf War
Chapter One
We gathered in Peter's and Kris's magnificent Alpine chalet in Big Bear, California, to celebrate our one-year marriage anniversary with a truly glorious dinner that Sharon and Jonathan had cooked for us as a sample of their intended menu that they were planning to offer in their gourmet restaurant scheduled to open in two weeks in the heart of Beverly Hills.
Afterwards, while enjoying an sweet after dinner drinks, Sharon seemed to be in a sudden pensive mood before asking. "Tell me, guys, why is it that despite our prolific lovemaking in both guises none of us when had gotten into estrus by now?"
"That's because so far none of us had started up with establishing our packs." Peter answered her.
"I don't understand, Pete. On the contrary, shouldn't we have conceived in order to get going on our packs?"
"That's not the way it works with us, Shari. In order to start building a pack a male needs to recruit at least one Beta female, and once she gets into estrus and conceives so will the Alpha."
"What?" Sharon nearly screamed. "Are you saying that in order for me to become pregnant Jonathan must first get a second wife and fuck her until she conceives? That's a barbaric custom and I resent having another woman in my home for him to do it with."
"It's not a custom but some sort of physiological trait amongst us, possibly so that the Alpha female will learn from first hand experience how to handle her pack's brood. And us guys have been negligent on starting raising families."
"In other words, Pete," I said, somewhat pissed. "None of you thought it was important enough to tell us as uninitiated Alpha females that you're going to present us with a bunch of concubines before we bear you any children. Why?"
"I'm sorry we never told you about it, Angie," My husband Frank said sincerely. "But I, Johnny, and Pete thought, even though we never talked about it, that you understood that Alpha males normally take on four concubines as you put it. I did tell you and Shari, though, about Dad having children with other women, such as Jonny's mother who is dad's Beta mate."
"But I thought that it was something unique to dad's pack rather than the norm."
"It's the same all over, Angie," Peter added. "I'm my dad's son with his Delta female, you know."
"No, I didn't and I'm pissed off."
"Don't be because you're going to love having three or four sisters and lord it over them, and once they bear you children you'll dearly love and consider them your own."
"And if you doubt that, Angie," Frank added. "Consider the fact that neither of you has any problem about making love with the other's husbands in either shape, and nor do we."
"True, but then we consider ourselves to be sisters and lovers, and we love all of you with all our hearts."
"Which isn't how the normals feel or behave. Yes, Angie, we all love each other generously, which is inherent in our breed and you're part of us. So, once we find additional suitable females to join us you'll each love them with all your hearts and consider them sisters rather than adversaries."
"I tend to agree with the men, Angie," Kris spoke for the first time. "Because of how much I love each and every one of you. And since the guys just told us about their packs and how everyone treats all their woman, I suddenly feel like I'd love to have such sisters to share Pete with."
"I'm not that far removed from how you feel, Krissy, but I still resent the way it was sprung on me."
"Same here," Sharon said. "And I'll have to approve of any woman you bring to our conjugal bed, Jonny."
"Of course, because that's how we all do it. In fact, it's the Alpha female job to ensure that there's no friction in her household."
"I see."
We all sat quietly for a while, considering the implications of having more women join our little cabal until Frank smiled suddenly. "Hey, Pete, since the subject of our duties as pack leaders had come up, I have two beautiful young sisters who would dearly love to be part of your new pack."
"Excellent idea because I got a few sisters who'd just love to come out west and join you and Jonny."
"Then be better call our dads and bring it up with them, then take it from there."
"I'll call mine on Monday."
"And so will I."
The next morning we ascended to the deep gorge below the chalet and began our beloved long run through it. Though it was quite cold already, and even more so in the ravine, there was no snow yet on the ground and the trail was covered with leaves of many colors that crunched loudly as we ran over them. As had become our custom once reaching the end of the trail, we took a short rest before each pair's male mounted his female and then we proceeded with an exciting round robin as each of us was mounted by another male. By the time we dropped to the ground totally exhausted I, and I was sure Sharon and Kris, came to the realization that sharing males and female partners was quite natural amongst our kind and that doing so with new females who join our pack should be just as pleasurable. In fact, I suddenly looked forward to Frank and myself adopting more female members into our pack.
As we were about to start on our run back home, we were suddenly confronted by an emaciated female wolf who stepped our from behind a row of shrubs and stood, literally shaking, in the midst of the trail. She looked quite ill, with a sparse fur and covered with welts all over and dried blood covered her entire hindquarters, but the most remarkable factor about her was that hanging from her right ear was an animal control tag.
When Frank, who was the titular leader of our little cabal, came closer to the female and sniffed her, his entire demeanor suddenly stiffened and we all could hear him ask her in mindtalk. "You're one of us, aren't you?"
Her response, in a shaky but clear mental voice surprised us. "Yes, I am. And so are my four sisters who are hiding behind the bushes and waiting for the outcome of my approach to you."
"Are you all shapeshifters, and are your sisters in the same terrible condition as you are?"
"Yes, Sir, we are. And all of us are similarly hurt from being maltreated for a long time by our bloody cousins."
"Never mind whose responsibility it is, at least for the time being, because right now you need to have some serious medical help. So call your sisters out of hiding so we can take you to our home and treat you properly."
The bushes to our right suddenly parted and four more females stepped out to the trail, all looking in as bad a condition as the first one and each wearing a similar tag, who approached us looking terribly fearful. Wishing to allay the poor creatures' evident anxiety, each of us approached one of them and licked their muzzles until they were able to relax and stop shivering, then we stayed near them as we trudged slowly to the path leading to the chalet.
The females were so weak and exhausted that it took two of us to push each of them over to the cliff's end, where they remained for a while panting as they lay on the ground until they got their wind back. Once back in the house after pressing the electronic button that Kris had installed all over, the six of us shifted back to human form before Frank asked their leader if they had enough strength to shift as well.
"I think we are, though we're quite weak and have been in wolf's shape for probably almost a year. So I'll start first and let's see what happens."
She closed her eyes and began the process, which took her nearly ten minutes before she completed shifting. She looked ever more pathetic as a human than wolf, with sores all over her body and so emaciated that her ribs all stood out and she could barely remain standing up. Sharon helped her to a chair at the kitchen table and cut her a thick slab of cold dear meat with a slice of bread while Kris rushed to get five blankets to cover each of them.
It took twenty minutes until the last of them was seated at the table and gobbling meat and bread while a pot of canned chicken soup was boiling on the stove, which Kris ladled out for each. We stood around them while they ate their first nourishing meal for the first time in months, but when they asked for more Peter stopped Kris from serving it to them.
"Sorry, Ladies, because you shouldn't fill your distended stomachs any more right now or you'll throw up. I'm a physician so I know what we need to do to bring you back to health, and the next thing we need to do is bath you and then treat all your wounds with disinfectant and give you tetanus shots."
Their leader smiled at him. "You're right, of course, because my stomach's already hurting a bit. My name, Doctor, is Amber Newman and I used to be the Beta female of a pack headed by Gerald Williams from northern Minnesota. I'd like to thank you all for myself and my sisters for saving our lives."
"No need to do that because once we ran into you it was our duty to take care of you all. No more talking now, though, because you need to wash and be taken care of medically and then you all need to grab a few hours' sleep. And then we'll talk."
"Sounds good to me." Amber stood up. "Where do we go to be taken care of?"
"We have a recreation room on the first floor that has a huge Jacuzzi were you can all fit in and wash with our help, and I'll take care of your medical needs as each of you comes out of the water."
"Won't using soap in the Jacuzzi ruin it?"
"You're quite well informed about such things, I see," Kris said with a chuckle. "But right now your well-being is more important than the few bucks it'll cost to fix it if necessary. And another thing, please give me your measurements to I can go to the village and get you some simple clothes for the time being."
"What village? I mean, where are we?"
"This is the City of Big Bear Lake, east of Los Angeles."
"I didn't realize we were taken this far."
"You'll tell us all about it later, so follow Pete over to the rec-room."
By the time Kris returned from her shopping all five women were washed and treated, and lying down half asleep on the chaise lounges set around the pool. We each chose one of them to dress with a pajama after we cut off the tags, and then carried them all to two bedrooms on the first floor where they fell asleep instantly.
"Terrible how these poor women were abused." Kris said as we sat in the living room after we all ate lunch."
"Amber said that it was done by our 'bloody cousins." Sharon said. "Who and what are they?"
"The worst kind of werewolves, Shari." Peter responded. The kind that legends and peasant folklore, as well as books and Hollywood stuff are now based upon which, no matter how farfetched they may sound, almost all are rooted in some kernel of truth. They are the epitome of unadulterated evil, are fanatical about consuming human flesh and drinking their blood, and have always been at work to destroy humankind."
"Don't they realize that if they succeed in their aim they'd eliminate their main food source?"
"No because, luckily, they're not overly bright. Which is why we'd been successful in keeping their population to a minimum over the years. And then, with the advent of modern times, their numbers had been reduced even further due to society's expansion and its ability to to track down and eliminate these murderers, which is what they truly are--either by shooting them while in wolf form, executing them, or nowadays by jailing them for life where they always suicide."
"Sounds terrible. But who are they, and why are they called 'cousins'?"
"That's because they are werewolves, albeit nothing like us even though they possess many of our traits because they originate partly from us, which is how they survive."
"What exactly are their origins, and how are they related to us?"
"Our cousins are not a separate genus but hybrid werewolves like us, who are produced when one of us impregnates a female during her estrus but she does not revert to human form immediately afterward and remains a wolf until she whelps."
"Why would a female do that?"
"We don't know, but my assumption as a physician is that some women are quite scared deep in their psyche of bearing children because of a tragic result that they had seen or experienced with a loved one."
"Well," Kris said. "My mother died as a result of giving me birth, and it always hurt and made me feel like I'd been abandoned by her, but I'd never suffered any stigma about ever getting pregnant."
"That's because you had such a loving father, darling, which few people have in a single father. But there's more to this issue than just that. While a human normally carries her baby for nine months and has to undergo great and annoying sufferings, then an extremely painful birthing, wolves do dot."
"Thanks for the encouragement, Pete. Why don't wolves suffer from their pregnancies?"
"Because even though they bear eight pups on the average, they each weigh about half a pound at birth and emerge from her body with considerable less pain than a human woman does with just one baby who weight six to seven pounds. And what's more, her gestation period averages about sixty-five days and she carries on four rather than two legs. So you see why to some it's preferable to carry and bear their babies while in wolf form."
"But aren't they aware that these pups are going to grow into virtual monsters?"
"They wouldn't if they knew that, but then not all our females are as smart as you are and some of our Alphas aren't either. Now, these nasty relatives of ours also practice another method of propagation other than pick up our castoffs, by kidnapping females from some weak packs and using them as breeding stock when their numbers diminish because unlike us, they tend to produce four males to one female."
"Sons o' bitches. You think that's what happened to Amber and her sisters?"
"I'm quite sure of that because of all the dried blood on their hindquarters, which means that they had all given birth quite recently."
"Makes sense, which makes me real mad about this whole thing."
"We see worse stuff happening in Santa Monica, a supposedly civilized part of the world, you know." Frank said.
"No, I didn't, but I guess there are a lot of sick creatures in our world, human and werewolf alike."
"That's for sure."
Chapter Two
When all the girls came out of their bedroom, probably because the smell of the roasting dear that Jonathan had caught and dressed earlier must have reached them, they looked very much improved--still emaciated looking but rested and unafraid. They each wore one of the various outfits that Kris had gotten them, had lipstick on, and had removed the Forestry Service tags from their ears which were replaced by the various earrings that Kris had apparently bought them. All seemed to have recovered from the mental and physical ordeals that they had so recently undergone, which told us that they were very sturdy ladies.
As soon as they entered the living room Sharon and Jonathan directed them to a seat at the dining room table which had been beautifully set as though for a party, and made sure that each lady was seated between two of us. Amber was placed between Frank and myself, and once we sat down she turned to me with tears in her eyes and spoke with great emotion.
"Thank you for what all of you had done for this wayward bunch of females, Angie."
"It was, and still is, our responsibility to do so, Amber. And once you're all relaxed after dinner you'll tell us about your experience I hope, if it won't be too painful to do so."
"Oh, it won't because here we are in this beautiful place amongst caring people such as you are so the nightmare we'd lived through for the past year looks like we'd just woken up from a bad dream that must be told and then forgotten."
"I'm glad to hear you say that. Now let's all dig in."
An hour later, when we were all seated in the living room with our guests still interspersed among us with Amber holding my hand and Jennifer Frank's, she began their story. "I, Jenny, and Kelly, come from a pack that lived in Northern Minnesota, and Kelly, Lisa, and Danny come from a South Dakota pack. All of our stories starts pretty similarly as our Alphas were negligent in hiding our presence in our areas and allowed us to be seen by the human inhabitants on a few occasions when we were cavorting in the forest the way you did this morning. Which scared some of them, who called the animal control people and ask that we be gotten rid of for fear that we might harm them, particularly their young children."
"Stands to reason that they would, which is why we always make sure and remain unseen, both here and in our other mountain home in a place called Frazier Park which is half-way between Los Angeles and Bakersfield." Frank told her.
"I'd heard about the area but I'm not familiar with it. Anyway, one early morning while everyone was stuck to one another backside-to-backside and virtually helpless, the park rangers opened fire on us from every direction with sedating-loaded syringes that put us instantly to sleep."
"Better that than being killed, as would've happened twenty years ago."
"Considering what happened later, maybe that would've been a blessing. So, when we woke up later we found out that we'd been each tagged and wore GPS collars to track our every movement after we had been released in a remote area of Yellowstone Park on a program they call Wolf Reintroduction after all of the park's Grey Wolves had been decimated. Terrible as it was to be forced to live like animals, we all made the best of it and set up a new living routine that allowed us to survive by finding a large and pretty warm cave where we could even cook without the smoke revealing our existence. Then, pretty soon we'd established ourselves a pretty comfortable life with many civilized amenities that we'd acquired either by theft from tourists or by outright purchasing."
"Sounds actually quite exciting." Sharon said with a smile.
"It was, and everyone loved it. Then disaster struck one morning when we woke up and found the cave entrance blocked by a bunch of huge black werewolves while another group attacked us. So, with no escape route out, they started butchering us."
"You mean to say that your Alpha didn't provide you with a rear door exit in case you needed to leave in a hurry?"
"No, a fact that I'd realized over months of thinking about it was something that even a dim witted animal would've made sure existed as a safety."
"It's called stupidity, or maybe even hubris about our invulnerability." Danielle Olson said. "Which our Alpha had suffered from as well. Luckily, our Beta was smarter and had provided us with a rear door out of the ranch we lived in, which he had used to Sheppard most of the pack out while our Alpha and two other males were killed and three females were captured."
"Your pack was lucky because the five of us were captured while everyone else was butchered by the animals, who were all in wolf shape and almost twice as large as any of us. It was a literal massacre when they first tore out the throats of all the males and older females, then started eating them down to the bare bones and then crunched those until nothing was left of them. They herded the survivors, who were too stunned to resist, into a closed van, then shifted and drove away."
"To where? And why did they capture rather than devour you?"
"We didn't understand at first, until we were off loaded in a desolate location we later found out was near Reno, Nevada, which they called their breeding farm."
"Breeding farm?" Kris literally whispered. "But you were all in human form, weren't you?"
"We were until we were threatened with painful torture if we didn't shift, and once we did everyone was put in tiny cages with barely any room for a wolf, let alone a human, so we wouldn't be able to shift back."