The Young Wolf
He woke quickly, heart thumping, a shout dying in his throat. The room was dark, curtains deepening the already murky shadows that crawled across the bed. He rolled to his feet, the sheets falling away. He shivered, sweat chilling his skin.
The house was quiet. He didn’t know why he was awake, or what woke him. A nightmare, perhaps. He recalled a darkness, a deep moonless night, and a whisper in the shadows. Eyes glowing from the dark, and a harsh whisper woke him, the words indistinct but the urgency enough to make him wake, terrified.
The house had been empty since his father disappeared one day, not coming back from work. A few days missing, and nothing. His repeated calls to the labs where his father worked went unanswered, and eventually, the phone calls stopped going through at all. The police came up empty handed. Since he was eighteen, there was nothing they could do for him. He didn’t have access to his dad’s accounts, the car was gone, and his after-school job was in downtown Augusta. While taking the bus was an option, there was no route nearby where he lived in the suburbs. He couldn’t handle the cold very well; he wouldn’t survive getting sick if he walked to the nearest bus stop. If the police didn’t find his father soon, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
He walked out of his room, flicking on the hall light on his way to the bathroom. He paused at a framed paper on the wall.
Dr. Mitchell Harmon graduated with honors with several degrees in genetics and biology, and had a medical degree from some big-name school in Boston. The diplomas lined the wall. There were no family portraits, no smiling faces and cheesy birthday photos. From the sparsity of personal touches, even he had trouble believing anyone lived in this house at all.
He continued down the hall, doing his best to ignore the quiet and solitude. Even if he called Mitchell Harmon his father, he was not all that close to the man who adopted him when he was a toddler, but the emptiness was enough to make him miss the remote and sometimes callous man. He was ill, had been all his life, and having a doctor for an adoptive father was probably why he was still alive. Dr. Harmon was infinitely better than the cold and insidious man he worked for. Just thinking about Simon Remus was enough to make him walk faster.
He reached the bathroom and took care of his needs, washing his hands and then flicking off the light. He paused, thinking he heard something. A thin sound, a whisper of wind? He stepped out into the hall, and took a few steps towards the front door. There it was again, something, a rustle. The wind, it had to be, otherwise there was someone whispering to him through the door.
The door slammed inwards, bright light flared in his eyes, and he screamed, covering his face. Shouts and thuds from many feet assaulted the quiet as he was knocked off his feet. Rough, gloved hands twisted his arms behind his back, and plastic ties went around his wrists. He tried screaming, but a fist knocked into the side of his head, stunning him.
****
The warehouse echoed with a ragged scream that escaped from the steel crate when it was jostled, the large metal box raking along the inside of the moving van. The cry was shrill and piercing, and made Simon’s head hurt. This was the last van, several others carrying out the rest of the specimens earlier in the night.
Simon winced, wishing the sedative could be stronger to silence the occupant, but a higher concentration would leave the specimen comatose, not to mention the silver poisoning degrading blood samples. Simon moved away, watching as the warehouse was systematically emptied, his soldiers removing all traces of the experiments and test subjects. The scientists and doctors were already moved to the new secret location, and he would start over. With Dr. Harmon now an unwilling guest of the werewolves, he had no doubt Harmon would spill the truth about the locations of his labs. And Roman McLennan was by no means a loyal beast.
His heart raced thinking about the monster that, for the last twenty years, had conspired with the Remus family to exploit the werewolves’ abilities. The last time he saw Roman was when the beast was fresh from forcing himself on Simon, leaving him naked, bloody, and fueled by rage and shame.
And lust.
His body thrummed, the bite mark on his neck sore and throbbing, and Simon remembered the weight of the werewolf on top of him, spreading his legs wide, fucking him like his bitch, making Simon whine and whimper for mercy…and for more. His body wanted Roman, ached for him, despite the humiliation and damage to his physical self. His mind was left in shambles.
Every night he dreamed of that beast. Heard him whispering in his ear, his malicious laugh and savage growls, felt his hard body holding him down. He woke hard and leaking, and it took only a few strokes before he blew, shuddering in a climax unlike anything he’d ever felt.
“Mr. Remus?” Simon turned to the head of security, the man was in tactical gear and carrying a weapon across his chest. Simon banished the visions of Roman’s body and the blood smeared sheets, focusing on the guard. “Sir, the specimens have been evacuated. The remaining werewolves loyal to McLennan have been sent forward to the new site. The compound is scrubbed.”
“How many of Roman’s wolves returned?” Simon asked, eyeing the shadows warily. He had never been on the best of terms with the rough and vile creatures that Roman combed from the clans over the years, and without Roman around to keep the survivors in check, he had no trust in them at all.
“Three came back from the aborted mission in Baxter, sir,” the security chief replied, hands tightening around his weapon. Simon wasn’t the only one who distrusted the werewolves. “I don’t think they’re going to be much use, scraggly, whipped runts that they are.”
“If they give you any trouble, shoot them,” Simon ordered.
“Understood, sir.”
Simon forgot what he wanted to say next, an image of Roman pushing into his thoughts, distracting him, making his heart race.
“Bring my car around, after I’ve left, do one last sweep,” Simon said, voice hoarse and words short of breath. He coughed, then spoke louder. “Once the premises are clear, detonate the charges.”
“Yes, sir.” The other man nodded, and Simon snorted, practically seeing the man’s desire to salute him. Military men had habits of a lifetime drilled into them, adjusting to civilian trappings was difficult, even for men with dishonorable discharges…which is why so many of them took the chance to work for him.
The soldier left, Simon walked out of the building, heading for his limo as it pulled up in front of him. Another soldier got out and held the door for him, and he slid in the back.
Simon sent a glance at the huddled figure on the far rear-facing seat, covered in thick wool blankets and silver chains. Not even a rattle to distinguish if the creature was even alive, but Simon wasn’t worried. Dr. Harmon’s one pathetic success was still unconscious. Simon smirked. The silver chains were unnecessary, but his guards insisted.
“Take me to the new site,” Simon ordered as the limo pulled away.
His experiments would continue. He would fulfill his government contracts, harness the power of alpha and shaman, and mankind would finally have the weapons needed to eradicate the werewolf abomination from their world. Part of the puzzle lay quietly a few feet away, and one day he would learn how to unlock the secrets of the wolfkin.
The company his brother started, and Simon took over, would eventually be able to name its price in all endeavors. And no one would tell him no.
Snow fell, the quiet streets of Augusta empty at this hour. Tomorrow the news would report a gas leak and the explosion of an empty warehouse in the industrial district with zero casualties.
****
Pain woke him. That and the cold, damp floor under his cheek. He tried moving his arms, they stung as if he’d lost circulation. He groaned when he pushed them under his chest, sitting upright slowly. He blinked, and sat back against cold metal bars that glimmered in the low light.
Metal shackles clinked from each wrist. A metal chain connected his wrists, the links a smooth, heavy metal that shined like the bars.
He was in a cage. A cage, and he was naked and wearing chains. His heart pounded, cold sweat clammy across his body, terror filling every shallow breath.
“Don’t get worked up, human.” A whisper from his left. He turned his head, and there was another cage. A shadow hunkered down in the dark, he thought he saw the glow from a pair of eyes that flickered. “You cannot withstand the cold as we can. Save your energy for staying warm.”
“What…what’s going on? Why…” He gasped, a whole-body shudder rolling through him. He grabbed the bars next to him, holding on.
“I can’t tell you why,” the shadow growled. “Far as I can tell, you’re human. You don’t smell like wolfkin. The bars and chains are silver, and they aren’t burning your skin. What Remus wants with a human, and measly, scrawny, sick one at that, is anyone’s guess. Did you piss the monster off?”
His mind was spinning. He didn’t understand anything, least of which was why his father’s boss would kidnap him and throw him into a cage naked. He grasped onto what he could, and stammered out, “Wolfkin?”
The shadow leaned forward. Eyes glowing with a fierce inner light, and elongated, sharp teeth peeked over the man’s thin, wide lips; his mouth oddly shaped. Thick brown fur grew along his cheekbones and down his neck to his shoulders. “Aye, little human. Wolfkin. Your kind might call us werewolves.”
He screamed, the sound thin and full of terror. His eyes rolled back in his head as he fainted.