The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11 Page 18

  I went across the highway and her scent was strong right over the canyon. My werewolf nose allowed me to discern the craziest things about Sasha. I separated them out in my head as I identified each of them: her sweat, her blood, her pheromones released from fear and pain, a quick squat and hurried urine splash behind a bush, and even the fragrance she was wearing, right down to the low notes of something intoxicating in her perfume. I tried to think of what it might be, visualizing the bottles on my roommate’s dresser at home: ambergris oil in a roll-on was her favorite. No wonder Sasha drove me nuts. The stuff was joy juice for my nose with its aroma-like sweet, smoky embers, mixed with the allure of her skin’s own individual pheromones. It was hard not to drool at how the scent that she rolled on almost every day was the major trail that I followed. Her scents, here and there on the ground, and even on the wind, gave me great hope that she was still alive. I did not smell her death, and I believed that I would have.

  On the other side of the street, there was a steep canyon. I stuck my nose over it and got a strong whiff of Sasha’s scent. I decided to go down in the canyon. The canyon was covered in rocks, bushes, trees and brush. I tried to be careful, but the angle was just far too steep. I stumbled down some rocks and dirt and slid into an area that didn’t exactly look like the safest place to stumble into. God knew what kind of animals were in here. As a werewolf, a Carni, I feared less, actually, than as my former human self. Still, I picked up on the distinct smell of rattlesnakes in the canyon, and I avoided their trails and stepped around them, smelling them long before I saw them almost camouflaged against their natural terrain.

  But, the scent was now overwhelming and I needed to continue into the thick brush if I was going to find Sasha in time and get her to medical help. I grabbed a large branch and began using it as a walking stick to help my balance as my body kept going downward into the canyon at a pretty steep rate.

  At the bottom of the canyon was the thickest brush I had ever seen. My ankle gave out once again, and I stumbled into it. As the ground became level, I scurried into it from my 45-degree angle.

  “Sasha,” I yelled out. I resisted the urge to howl for her, but wondered if a Carni howl would travel further than a human shout. The scent was now as powerful a smell as I had ever sniffed. I would have known her anywhere, or my nose would have. I knew in my heart of hearts that she was here in this thick brush, dead or alive. But probably alive. I was confident I had found her. I said a little prayer to myself that she was still alive. I tried to hold my breath and see if I could hear her heartbeat. I could not, but I heard the sound of many cicadas clicking their abdomens, the fast, tiny heartbeats of kangaroo rats as they dove into holes as my huge feet crossed their tunnels, and the high-pitched thrip-thrip of hummingbirds diving at me when I pulled back bushes, looking, looking for Sasha. All of the other animals and insects were like a cacophony of noise that covered up a human heartbeat, if there was one nearby, other than my own.

  I called out her name repeatedly. “Sasha! Sasha, are you here?”

  Then from a distance, I heard a faint, “Tommy.”

  My heart leaped. “Sasha!” I called out, more joyful at that moment that I had imagined that I was capable of feeling.

  “Tommy.” Her voice was now a little louder. It was coming from the middle of the thick brush that stood before me.

  “Are you able to move?” I yelled out.

  “No. I think both of my legs are broken.”

  Fuck! How the hell was I going to carry a woman with two broken legs up a canyon?

  “Hold on,” I said. “I’m coming to get you.”

  I used my stick to make a path in front of me as I went deeper and deeper into the thick branches and leaves. I was now completely in the brush and I was sweating profusely, trying to find my friend. My arms and face continued to get scratched and raked by the branches, but I pushed forward and ignored the pain. Finally, in the middle of the thick, humid brush, I found Sasha.

  She was lying in a fetal position, completely naked. I’m not sure what happened to her clothes, but her body was scratched, bruised, and as swollen as I had ever seen a woman’s body in my life. Sasha usually had a very sexy body when she was naked, but that was the last thing on my mind. I let my hormones lead me to the scent, and that was it. I took off my large T-shirt and wrapped it around her body.

  I took off my shoes and socks, too. I figured I could at least wrap her feet in my socks. I put my shoes back on without my socks, as I was going to be doing the walking and needed the protection for myself. At least my socks could protect her feet a little bit, if necessary.

  “Why are you getting naked?” Sasha asked as I quickly began removing my clothes.

  “I’m trying to clothe you with my clothes. I’d give you my underwear but as you know, I don’t wear any.”

  “I feel so weak,” Sasha said. Her face was covered in dried blood and this poor girl looked like a horrid mess.

  “Sweetie, listen. Are you sure your legs are broken? If they aren’t, I can move you.”

  “They might not be broken but I can’t put any weight on my legs.”

  “That’s okay. That’s good enough for me. I’m getting you out of here.”

  I began clothing Sasha with my shirt and socks, although she would be panty-less. My shirt was long enough that it covered her body right below the important parts.

  “What happened to me, Tommy?”

  “Listen, I’ll tell you everything later, but first, let’s get you out of here.” I leaned over and picked up Sasha and put her over my shoulder as gently as I could. I was just wearing blue jeans and tennis shoes. The brush continued to cut my arms, hands, shoulders, and now my bare back as I exited the treacherous wilderness that was a tangle of plants with thorns, spines and spikes.

  Once I hit the open canyon and was completely out of the brush, I stopped to get my breath. My adrenaline was going, but I couldn’t deny the pain and fatigue I felt. I gave it all I had hiking up the 45-degree canyon, lugging a 115-pound woman over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. At times, I felt as if I was going to pass out myself, but I battled through it.

  Finally, I made it to the highway.

  “Sasha, we’ve made it out,” I said.

  She didn’t respond. I laid her on the side of the road and I lay next to her, trying to catch my breath. The dry, thin air didn’t help my breathing any. The sun blistered down on both of us and I knew I’d better get up before people thought we were both hit by a car and called for an ambulance.

  I jumped back to my feet and threw Sasha back over my shoulder. I headed back to where I had parted ways with Maya and Josiah. Eventually, I made it back to the area where Maya and Josiah were standing next to my black Mustang, both of them looking worried. They saw me stumble up and they both hurried over to me.

  I maneuvered Sasha’s body so she wouldn’t give Josiah a nice peep show. I wanted to spare her that embarrassment.

  “Is she okay?” Josiah asked.

  “No, but let’s get her to my apartment,” I said.

  “You don’t think we should take her to the hospital?” Maya asked.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Sasha and I had to go to the hospital. This time, it would be for her, not me. “I doubt she has any insurance,” I said.

  “They will still treat her,” Maya said. “She’s severely injured. By federal law, I don’t think they are allowed to turn her away until she is at least stabilized.”

  “All right,” I said. “Josiah, Google the nearest hospital.”

  Josiah took out his phone and fiddled around a bit to get connected to the internet. “The closest hospital is Arrowhead Community Hospital. It is about 15 minutes down the mountain.”

  “Thanks, Josiah. That was fast.”

  “Hey, man, when it comes to the ladies… I do everything fast.”

  I gave Josiah a look as if to say that wasn’t the smartest thing a man could say, but this was too important of a moment to get too silly and start r
ibbing him. “Good job, Josiah. It’s nice to know you’re good for something.”

  The four of us climbed into my Mustang and we headed for the hospital.

  Chapter Four

  We took Sasha into the emergency room at the local hospital in Arrowhead. She regained consciousness after they put an I.V. in her arm and she received some fluids.

  We needed to get her to my apartment quickly, before dark. There were two more nights of the full moon—technically, there is only one full moon a month, but the day before and the day after it were also werewolf time. I wasn’t sure how we were going to deal with the cage-in-the-apartment situation, now that there were two werewolves in the apartment. I figured tonight, it was going to have to be a cage for two. I wasn’t sure if that was the safest idea. I had no idea what my temperament was when I changed. How primal were werewolves when they turned? I didn’t want to kill her in the cage, or possibly do something even more disturbing. I had no recollection of what had happened when I had turned the night before. I’m not sure if we would attack each other in such close quarters.

  First, they needed to release her to our care. I was right about her not having any type of insurance. Unfortunately, we lived in a day and age that it was a primary consideration for profit-run hospitals to make profit their priority. They were only required, as Maya had said, to keep uninsured patients until they were stabilized. And then, kicked to the curb, to whatever motley, ragtag, bloody, scratched and shirtless hooligan who wanted to claim the injured patient and whisk her out of their sterile-draped ER cubicles. So, when she had a blood pressure that was deemed stable, the hospital released her to our care. The X-rays had shown that she had no broken bones. She only had sprains in her legs and ankles. There was no structural damage in either leg. That was very good news. I felt sorry for Sasha. She didn’t have anyone else but me. I had become her only family. I felt she had become my responsibility. At least, in the meantime, I wasn’t sure how cool Maya would be about me nursing a female friend back to health.

  The next order of business was to feed the teenage garbage disposal that we had brought along for the trip. Josiah ate an excessive amount of food, but to the kid’s credit, he worked out all the time and burned calories at an enormous rate. As far as I could tell, the kid didn’t have an ounce of fat on his body.

  We stopped at a Norm’s in Riverside and let Josiah devour about 4,000 calories worth of flapjacks, hash browns and bacon. He put away more food than a family of four. The rest of us ate pretty light. My stomach wasn’t feeling right and the last thing I wanted to do was fill up.

  I dropped off Josiah at his parents’ house and reminded him of the secrecy that we all had shared up in the mountains. He didn’t perceive anything in the paranormal sense, but he had every right to question what the hell a grown woman was doing out in the middle of the brush in the heart of the San Bernardino Mountains. To my surprise, he didn’t ask too many questions. We just told him that Sasha got real drunk and walked off. Sasha was okay with a teenager thinking she was a lush, because he couldn’t exactly know the truth: that his friend and his friend’s friend were members of an elite club that I jokingly thought of in my head as “The Real Wolfpack.” The last thing any of us wanted to do was to get Josiah involved in all of this… paranormal activity.

  I had a feeling that compromising the truth about being a werewolf was something I was going to have to do quite often. When needed, I was going to have to stretch the truth for my own safety, security, and well-being. I sure didn’t want to end up as the feature story on that crazy news network that led with what bleeds or restrained to a bed in a county psych ward.

  When we arrived back at the house, we all went over the details of the night that was in front of us. We agreed that if she had to, Maya would let Sasha out of the cage for her own safety if Sasha and I decided to fight in the cage. I hoped there were similar instincts that werewolves had that were similar to humans and if I was comfortable with Sasha in my human form, then I should be okay when I turned into a werewolf.

  “I’m not worried, Tommy,” Sasha said. “This isn’t the first time I had to share a space with a fellow Carni.”

  “Yeah, but this is the first time you will ever share a space with a Carni who is a professional fighter. My animalistic instincts are to fight. I’m hoping my paternal instincts will take over and I will protect you, rather than hurt you, or—”

  “We’ll be fine,” she interrupted.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked Sasha.

  “Well, aside from some cuts and bruises, I feel all right. My legs are still pretty weak. And I am sure thirsty, despite the I.V.s they stuck in both arms.” She winced and pulled off the surgical tape and cotton from inside her elbows, looking with a grimace at the swelling and bruising. “Ow,” she said.

  I nodded my head at Sasha. “We’ll get you taken care of. I have a stash of Gatorade and other electrolyte sports drinks. Do you like that kind of stuff?”

  “Yes, please. Like four of them right now, any kind, would be good,” Sasha joked.

  I looked at Maya and asked, “Are you okay with all this?”

  “We don’t have much of a choice. We didn’t have time to go anywhere else.” Maya’s face didn’t assure me that she was okay with this at all. But she was such a good sport that she just rolled with bizarre shit like this. Even if it internally rubbed her the wrong way.

  “You’re an amazing person, Maya,” I said, as I prepared the cage. I tried to make sure that Maya knew that she was still my woman. I had spent a lot of time finding Sasha and my wolfie senses indicated an annoyed scent coming from Maya. We had 30 minutes before the full moon would be out and we needed to make sure everything was okay.

  Soon, the full moon was upon us but Sasha and I were already securely locked in the cage.

  The night was a blur, but I had flashes of recollection. Unlike the night before, in which I remembered nothing, I could remember seeing the bars from inside of the cage and howling. I didn’t say that I remembered key events about the night, but at least I remembered something.

  I woke up and I was on top of Sasha’s sweaty body, possessive and protective. Uh-oh! We were both dripping wet but still had on our shorts and Tshirts. Whew!

  The clock read 6:30 a.m. I looked to the left side of the room. Maya was asleep in the recliner.

  “Maya,” I called out in a cross between a whisper and a bellow. “We’ve changed back to bipeds. I need to pee real bad. Can you open up the cage?”

  Maya opened her eyes, and slowly moved her body over to the cage, grabbed the keys that were on the counter and let me out. I ran to the bathroom and relieved myself.

  I came back out and covered Sasha with a blanket. She was still asleep and I didn’t want to bother her.

  Maya and I left the living room and made our way to the bedroom. As we entered my room, Maya said, “You and Sasha can no longer stay in your apartment when you turn, Tommy. How the police didn’t show up last night is beyond me.”

  “We were loud, huh?”

  “No, you were loud. Poor Sasha’s whining and whimpering were drowned out by your howl.”

  “My howl was loud?”

  “Off the charts loud. Suicidal Tendencies speed metal loud. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst of it was your constant barking and yelping.”

  “But, was it sexy? That is the real question.”

  “Yeah, you were all about the sexy last night,” Maya said. “But that had nothing to do with the noises you were making.”

  “Please tell me we didn’t do anything physical? Me and Sasha?” My stomach sank.

  “By physical, do you mean did you sniff Sasha’s butt all night? Your nose was a very bad boy last night.”

  “My nose?” I took off my clothes and wrapped a towel around me to take a shower.

  “Your nose was one kinky exploring machine. I kept poking you with the broom, trying to make you stop. One thing was for sure. Whatever odor that was coming out of Sasha’s
butt seemed to delight your senses. You couldn’t get enough of smelling her. It was like you tried to suck her butt up your nostrils.”

  I felt myself blush. “But nothing sexual happened?”

  “Not when I was awake.”

  That relieved me. “Well, let’s just assume it didn’t.”

  “Tommy, the truth is, that didn’t bother me nearly as much as you yelping all night.”

  “I thought you said it was sexy?”

  “Your howl is sexy. Your yelp reminds me of an oversized Chihuahua’s bark that annoys you to no end with its constant noise.”

  “So, there is a difference between my howl and bark?”

  “Yes, your howl comes from a deep place inside your soul. It’s a melodic sound and it stirs up emotions when heard. Your yelp or bark sounds like a bitter old junkyard dog that has nothing better to do than to snarl and growl. You’re going to have animal control out here if you spend another night here as a werewolf. You’re far too loud for an apartment.”

  “Where should we go?”

  “The only place I can think is your grandmother’s cabin. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

  “What about Sasha?”

  “What about her? Do you plan on taking care of her forever?”

  Oh, shit! Maya was claiming her turf, which was me. And not subtly either. I looked at Maya, and thought about Sasha, who was still passed out asleep in the middle of the cage. “So, you’re sure nothing weird occurred last night, other than some butt sniffing?”

  “It was constant butt sniffing. At one point, you rested with your nose about a half inch from her tush. Really, Tommy, you were so gross!”

  “If nothing sexual happened, then why should we be separated?”

  “You don’t leave the poor girl alone. You’re loud and predatory. In her werewolf form, she is very submissive to you. I feel bad for her. She spent most of the time showing you her belly and tucking her tail between her legs, whimpering and whining. I’m sure she was miserable.”