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  A werewolf should never travel alone and he had been doing that more often than not these days. As the elevator opened to his room and he stepped in, he fell across the bed dog tired.

  His first thoughts were to let someone know where he was, but he felt betrayed, and decided against it, reverting to his original idea about causing Adrienne to worry about him.

  The next morning after a hot bath, he skipped breakfast in lieu of getting to the bank and replacing the money he threw away. First he called the desk and asked if someone had placed gas in his truck.

  “Your keys are at the desk, Mr. Samsa, and the tank is full. We added that to the credit card on file. And would you like us to extend you credit so you can gamble.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m checking out now.”

  “You can check on your television for the bill if you have any questions.”

  “No. That won’t be necessary.”

  “Then you can pick up your car keys on your way out.”

  It was bright and the snow fall heavier than last night, but the only difference was it was in the middle of the day. I guess I made my point, Lycell thought. He climbed into his truck and started out and steered it west on his way back to Samsaville.

  Listening to Willie Nelson’s “Of All the Girls I’ve Loved Before...” on the local radio station and thinking about Adrienne, he didn’t look in his rearview mirror to see the black SUV coming up close behind and at a faster speed than his. When he did look it was too late and the SUV hit him in the rear, and jolted the Ford, which veered to the right and hit a guard rail.

  The SUV stopped and the Ford truck carrying Lycell moved a few feet and stopped.

  With Lycell’s truck parked to the side of the road, watching in the rear mirror, he waited a minute and then stepped out. Two men dressed in fur lined parkers and boots hopped out of the large truck.

  When the men reached Lycell, they stood looking at him and one said, “Remember us?”

  “Not all of you, but I do know you, Paul. You’re the one Adrienne ditched to marry me,” Lycell said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. It did no good to explain the relationship to Paul so Lycell didn’t try.

  It wasn’t that type of gathering. They weren’t friends.

  Lycell wasn’t the kind to explain anything anyway so he let Paul think what he wanted because he enjoyed frustrating men. Especially a low life like Paul and his friends.

  Paul stepped closer to Lycell looking him in the eyes. Lycell is an Alpha and the notion of an adversary intimidating or challenging him, and this was clearly a challenge, pissed him off to the highest degree. However, he tried controlling that wolf inside of him.

  Making up his mind that nothing would irritate him today helped to keep him calm, or as calm as a werewolf could be.

  Paul motioned with his hand to one friend standing next to him to come closer. Lycell didn’t see the other one in the car because of the dark windows, but his instincts signaled that something wasn’t right. His ears perked when he heard the sound of a gun click and then he caught sight of a figure.

  “You know who this is?” Paul said as he turned to his friend with the question. And the friend shook his head no. They knew from reading the papers that Adrienne had married Drayton Samsa, but what they didn’t take time to note in the article is that Drayton was one of three—triplets.

  “This is the fool who married Adrienne. After we finished fucking her, her cunt wasn’t good for anything. So she married this pussy. Did the bitch ever have any babies? We made it so she could never have any.” And he smiled. The friend’s smile grew wide and they both laughed at Lycell.

  “You mean you did that to her on purpose?” The expression on Lycell’s face changed three times.

  “Yeah. She was so out of it after my boys finished with her that night, and I got a piece when she fainted. Her lying there unconscious, she was the sweetest fuck I ever had. Women aren’t my thing if you know what I mean,” Paul said with a closed smile looking to his friend for agreement. His friend smiled back. “After we all got a piece of her, I bet you couldn’t feel her with that little dick of yours?” Lycell’s eyes looked to the right and then the left to scan the roadway. No cars in sight. No snowplows.

  “I wanted to marry her. Imagine that,” Paul said. And he and his friend both laughed.

  Reaching for his zipper and unzipping it Lycell pulled out his large penis and urinated on Paul’s boots. The two men gasped at Lycell’s cock.

  “You mean this little thing?” Lycell said after marking his territory on their shoes.

  Lycell stood calm, but his jaw tightened and he looked at Paul with narrow eyes. “I just want to make sure of one thing. Were you one of the dogs who raped Adrienne?” Lycell said turning to Paul’s friend who had a wider grin on his face. The grin was because he had never seen a penis that large before.

  “I got a piece of that sweet ass and so did our friend in the car.” He turned pointing with a wild snort.

  “Him too? That’s interesting.” Lycell zipped his pants and rubbed his hand under his beard. “Well, Paul, we have six sons no thanks to you, and she’s pregnant now for my brother.”

  Paul didn’t respond right away. He stood with his mouth open wide and his eyes staring at Lycell.

  “See I told you she was a slut,” he said glancing back at his friend. When he turned to say something to Lycell, he heard the sound of bones breaking and watching in horror as Lycell shifted into a large wolf standing on two hind legs, and with one swipe of his paw, he cut Paul’s body in half.

  The terror stricken friend standing near Paul, covered with blood over his terror stricken face, looked like an animal headed for slaughter, and he tried to run, but only got four steps to the SUV and with his hands on the door, Lycell reached him, grabbed him by his neck, and holding him in the air, he made one perfect bite at his jugular, and blood spilled from his throat like a stuck pig.

  Lycell threw him across the roadway, then moved to the SUV to find the door locked. He pulled at the handle and jerked at it. It didn’t open. He pulled and pulled at the handle until someone unlocked it.

  He paused thinking about whether he should go inside the truck. He wasn’t sure. But he was sure of one thing. He couldn’t leave the man alive to tell of what he saw.

  As Lycell entered the opening of the SUV, two shots rang out, striking Lycell. The shots hit him hard throwing him backwards. He heard someone open the door and step out into the snow. Lycell crawled on his knees around to the front of his truck. He looked and saw the trees and he knew he had to use the trees as protection. He felt weak. He looked down and saw a puddle of blood on the snow.

  Lycell prayed the man was a hunter. A hunter would never follow a wounded animal into the forest. He hid near a large pine trying to catch his breath. He felt his wolf life leaving him and soon he would shift back to a man. He didn’t want that because he needed his wolf strength to stop the man if he tried to follow him.

  Breathing hard Lycell heard the man hoist his leg over the barrier and step down into the snow. This man wasn’t a hunter, but a man with a gun who knew how to use it. The man walked slow and cautious. He stopped after seeing the blood. He stood and gazed to his left and then his right. He didn’t see the animal who had killed his friends. The man with the gun wasn’t smart enough to turn around and get help.

  With his last bit of strength Lycell reached for the terrified man’s leg and brought him down hard in the soft snow. As Lycell wrapped his hands around the man’s neck and squeezed the life out of the man’s eyes, and before they went dark, the man got off two more shots into Lycell.

  Chapter 10

  Lycell uncontrollably and unwillingly shifted back to his human form and stumbled naked to his truck. He managed to start the motor. Blood flowing down his arms in large drips. Blood from a head wound dripping freely into his eyes. He wiped his eyes, but that wasn’t enough and the blood continued to trickle into them.

  Blinking and rubbing his eyes didn�
��t help. His vision became fuzzy and he felt light headed, but he kept driving through the snow and blood, trying to get home to the ranch, to Adrienne, to his family, and to his pack.

  Why did he choose not to call Adrienne and tell her where he had been and apologize for being an ass? Six sons she gave him and he behaved like a teenager. He should have known better, he thought.

  It was the first time he had been shot. It felt like a sting. A sting from an insect bite. Then after the heat and blistering pain poured through him. It was as if a bear had attacked him but much worse. He realized now he could die from the gunshot wound and never see Adrienne again.

  He could bleed to death, and no one would know where he was, or to look for him until it was too late.

  His thinking became vague. He turned on the radio to focus his mind and to keep it active. The snow dropping fast and heavy on the windshield and now harder than before. The windshield wipers, straining from the heavy snowflakes, couldn’t keep up. How long will it take for him to get home? He questioned. How long will it take for him to see Adrienne?

  Hitting the button for his windows he stuck his head out and let out a feeble howl. That was his way of saying how stupid he had been. How juvenile. It was something he expected of his sons. After being with Adrienne and feeling the love she had for him, how could be leave her and not tell her where he was going? He banged his fist on the steering wheel.

  Driving for a few minutes felt like hours but it wasn’t even a minute had passed. There were no cars on the road but his. Why would there be? Only a werewolf with keen eyesight could navigate through this, and even with his eyesight it wouldn’t be enough to get through the snow.

  He thought about getting out and running home, but he had no change of clothes, and he might freeze before he shifted, if he had the strength. He couldn’t even gauge how many miles he would have to run in this freezing weather. An hour drive from Lake Tahoe, on foot and at full stride, might take him three hours.

  Three hours in cold weather bleeding, naked, and hungry, he would never make it.

  It took strength every time a werewolf shifted. It took fresh meat in his diet and he couldn’t remember when he had last eaten. His mind became unhinged.

  With cloudy vision and unbalanced mind brought on by the loss of blood, Lycell thought he saw Adrienne standing in the middle of the road. Swerving to keep from hitting her, he veered to the left, hit something and the truck plunged over the guard-rail into an embankment. Tumbling over, rolling over with the truck, somewhere Lycell loss conscious. The Ford came to a rest against a large tree.

  When Lycell woke, his legs were pinned under the dashboard and the steering wheel bent into his chest. Unable to move his legs, and unable to remember why he was naked in a truck, in surroundings he didn’t recognize, he tried pulling his legs and they wouldn’t move. Then with all the strength he could muster, he pushed up the steering column, pulling his legs from under the dashboard.

  But when he tried moving his legs, they felt like dead weight. Was he crippled before or after the accident? He wondered.

  He shook his head trying to remember. He blinked his eyes and covering them were a film of blood restricting his eyesight. He passed his hand across his eyes and then nose and lips, then over his face. His face didn’t appear to be damaged. What he felt was a small amount of blood flowing from a cut on his head. His vision appeared better. Unusually better than before.

  Lycell didn’t question why he could see miles ahead of him. The relief he felt at just seeing anything made him happy. He laughed knowing that he could at least see. But that notion had been spoiled at the thought of not being able to walk.

  His mind focused on why he couldn’t walk, on his memory loss, and on the burning pain from the bullet wound in his shoulder and arms. Why had he been shot?

  The pain from the bullet gave way to the pain in his legs. And that’s when he realized that he wasn’t paralyzed before the accident, and he wasn’t paralyzed now. He glanced at the wound on his shoulder and arm and the scars across his chest which appeared to be old. He studied the old wound. Was he some kind of hunter?

  Too many questions he couldn’t answer occupied his mind. What about the woman he thought he saw earlier on the road? Who was she?

  And why was he driving naked?

  As Lycell began to think about why he was in this accident, it came to him that it was because of this woman he thought he knew which had distracted him. But he couldn’t connect the face with a name, and how she fit into his life.

  Looking around the truck he saw nothing. There wasn’t even a phone. Nothing. If he couldn’t walk how was he to get out of the wreck? And if he got out into the snow, he would freeze. But he had to get out of the truck and get to the road.

  Looking out the smashed window, he notice the snow easing up.

  Raising his head proved painful. He placed his hand on his temple, and felt a large gash where the blood had dried. He had been struck by something in the truck. Glancing around, he saw the culprit. It was the gear shift when he tumbled around.

  He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious because he couldn’t remember where he was coming from or where he was going. Why wasn’t he wearing his seat belt? Reaching for the handle to get out, his primary thought was to get to the road, so Lycell opened the door.

  “That was easy,” he mumbled. “Now what?” He dragged his upper body out with his hands, as he pulled his legs behind him falling deep into the snow. Grunting and moaning from pain as he felt the biting cold sear his skin, and with his painful useless legs dragging behind him, Lycell managed a feat no man could have. But he never question how he was able to do that. He didn’t have time.

  It was now the middle of the day and warm considering it was freezing. And then there is the matter of him being naked. How long could he stay alive like this? He wondered. But he had to stay alive. There is the matter of the woman with the beautiful face smiling at him. She must be something to him, he thought.

  “I have to find food and water.” He glanced around at the open door to the truck and there wasn’t a sign of anything to eat or drink. After getting out, there was no way he would go searching around for something because of his hunger, he couldn’t see anything that would satisfy it. He heard something that sounded like water moving, but how could he hear water moving? He questioned. And how could he survive in these temperatures without any clothes? He batted this around his mind. But the cold and his hunger prevented him from concentrating on an answer.

  Pulling with his powerful arms, and dragging his feet behind, he worked his way through the snow covered leaves and branches from towering pine trees and brush. The snow had been a friend and foe because the ground had been hilly and full of rocks without the snow piled high he would have to work even harder.

  He thought he would find some kind of animals or water. But he satisfied himself by eating the snow.

  He knew instinctively that he could live as long as he had enough water. Live long enough to find food, if he didn’t die from his wounds. He knew instinctively that the predators would be out later. Perhaps at night. How did he know that unless he was a hunter?

  “Fuck me,” he said. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” If this isn’t the worse position to be in, he thought.

  Gazing up, he saw sunlight. It would be a long excruciating climb to the highway. The rocks under the snow would make it worse for him. But he had to do something. He couldn’t stay in one place.

  Trying to get to the river would be equally hard. How did he know there would be a river or lake? He could smell it. He could hear it.

  But he couldn’t climb with his legs the way they are. He would have to use his arms to move his body. Would his arms give out before he reached the water? Then he could die and make it easy for the predators who came to the lake to drink. That would ensure his body would never be found.

  Chapter 11

  Raising his head he tuned it in the direction of the sound of flowing water. He wrinkle
d his nose catching the scent of fresh water. “Trout,” he murmured. “There will be fish and something fresh to eat.” He raised his voice as if talking to someone. When he glanced around it was only him. Was he losing his mind?

  A decision was made. He had to reach the water and it was at the bottom of the hill, so he crawled in that direction to the river.

  Lycell didn’t question why he should hear water from what appeared to be a mile away or smell it. He knew there were fish in the water and that meant food. He needed fresh running water and fish, so he made the fateful decision to go in that direction. But if he was a hunter he knew to beware. It wasn’t likely bears would be out in December, but what about mountain lions? He had to risk it.

  Looking up he paused a second trying to see through the trees towering over him. “What time is it?” he murmured. Now he didn’t feel any pain. “Am I dying?” He didn’t want to die at least until he found out who the beautiful woman was smiling at him and distracting him as he drove.

  Somehow he knew it was just his mind fucking with him when he swerved to avoid hitting her, but she was real in his mind, and he did know that. And as long as he could keep her in his mind he would have the strength to press on.

  The knowledge that he loved the woman gave him comfort, and so he pulled his body along with grit, with will power, and with extraordinary upper body strength. Questioning himself about the woman every few minutes helped focused his mind.

  Unable to remember if it was the kind of love for a friend or a wife, at the moment he didn’t care because her very existence gave him the courage and stamina to live to find out. Maybe she was his mother. But why didn’t he know that? No one forgets their mother. But he forgot everything including his name.

  Then it became obvious to him. His amnesia had to do with the accident.

  When he pulled himself along the rocks and the snow soaked ground, still bleeding, but even that had lessened. He inched down in the direction of the running water. He took a needed breath and looked down to measure the distance of where he had to go to reach the river-bank. There was still a long way he had to travel.