Page 30 of Memphis Heat

Epilogue

“Welcome home,” Butch Carson said as he passed Jarod’s locker.

“We missed you two,” Callahan put in, stopping beside them, one hand on the towel draped around his waist. They’d all spent enough time in the showers, washing away the scent of blood and gun battles and fear, to make even the station’s formidable boiler begin to go cold. And still it wasn’t enough.

“Glad to be back.” Jarod acknowledged the greeting with a tip of his head. He wrapped an arm around Belle. “Glad we’re both here. We owe you.”

“I owe you,” Belle put in, leaning heavily against Jarod’s side.

“We’re cops,” Amanda answered. “And you’re Pack.”

The explanation was simple, but all they had.

“I wish we could have brought everyone home.”

Belle looked away, but Regan felt the loss in her voice. “We all do.”

“Let’s run,” Amanda suggested. Though it wasn’t the kind of suggestion anyone felt like arguing with. As one, the two lieutenants, Jarod, and their partners loosed their towels and shifted to full wolf form. The pack of seven bounded out the K-9 unit’s door and took off for Riverside Park.

They ran until they’d left most of the tang of civilization behind, dodging through trees and undergrowth into the wide-open, grassy flats along the riverbank, running until even their powerful legs began to tire.

At last Belle faltered and went down, the pack tumbling into her, as much from need to stay together as from anything else.

Remmy, the smallest of them, was also the most agile, and the first to scramble back to his feet.

Leaning into Amanda, who rested her head against Callahan, Remmy pointed his muzzle to the sky and let a long, piercing howl ring out.

The rest of the pack took up the cry, letting their grief and frustration and anger all pour out in a long, mournful song to the night.

When at last the song faded, they curled up together, nose to tail, licking lightly to show one another their concern.

With little nips and kisses they soothed one another, no longer cops, or men, or partners, but wolves.

Overhead in the distant night sky the moon itself seemed to fly at half-mast for the fallen.

Jarod wrapped around Belle, nuzzling her cheek to cheek.

She licked his muzzle, leaning into him.

Callahan and Amanda tangled together with Remmy, too many limbs in the pile to sort out.

Butch and Regan touched noses, losing their footing as Remmy toppled into them.

Within moments they’d all shifted, tangling together in a naked pile, their forlorn howls fading to muted laughter.

Belle offered up a shy, probing kiss, which Jarod returned with a growing passion. He took her into his arms, the pile of bodies warm around them. “So long,” Belle whispered.

“Too long. I’m glad you had my back, but damn, I’ve missed this. Just us. Just pack. No politics, no having to be on guard 24/7. Just us. Just you.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, long, slow, and hard.

“Terra…” Amanda pressed her forehead against Callahan’s chest. “I thought we were friends. More than friends. She was my partner, for crying out loud! I never saw that one coming. I still don’t understand why she turned on us.”

“She didn’t,” Callahan explained, his tone gentle.

“I don’t think she was ever one of us. She was an Old World wolf, old enough to mask her wolf blood.

She infiltrated us like a real pro.” He sighed as he dipped his head to Amanda for a kiss before continuing.

“I’m betting not for the first time. She was too damn good. ”

“But we went down together. I saw her changed…”

“You saw her take the blood that was offered. Wolves don’t need blood, but it won’t hurt us. Not like we can turn all over again.”

“So it was all a lie. All of it.”

Remmy slipped an arm around her shoulder. “We’re not a lie, Amanda. You. Callahan. Me. I like what we’ve got, whatever it is.” As if to emphasize his point, he nipped lightly at her ear. Then, just as shyly, he leaned over to repeat the gesture with Callahan.

Callahan kissed him, long and slow and deep. Watching them, Amanda moaned. “Damn, that’s so fucking hot!”

Regan leaned in to give Amanda a kiss. “No reason we should be left out of the fun.”

With a sexy chuckle, Amanda leaned in to rub her tits in slow, sensuous circles against Regan’s, their nipples brushing.

Callahan and Butch both sat back on their knees, watching, mesmerized.

Amanda laughed as she let go of the kiss, only to fasten her mouth on Callahan’s pebble-hard nipple, nipping gently.

“Holy fuck.” He lunged forward, biting her lip as he pulled her off her feet.

Not to be outdone, Butch captured Regan from behind, his hands working her nipples the way he knew she loved as he met her lips in an over-the-shoulder kiss.

His cock ground hard against her ass, his fingers probing, spreading her wide, loosening her for the girth of his rock-hard cock.

Belle reached for Amanda even as Jarod found his way to her cunt, licking and nipping, arousing her as only he could. Long, low moans and whimpers came from the women as they stroked and caressed each other, inflaming their men, tantalizing them with the scent of their lust.

Remmy kissed Amanda, long and deep, before he sank down to take Callahan’s cock in his mouth. Amanda leaned in to finger Remmy’s ass, opening him up for Callahan, even as she slid down Remmy’s cock. The two men pounded into her with double force, rocking her back on her knees.

Beside them, Butch took Regan from behind, leaving her breathless and gasping for more with every thrust. “God,” she whimpered. “Fuck me. Just fuck me. Make this night the only thing I remember…”

Jarod couldn’t get enough of Belle. The feeling he’d almost lost her simply wouldn’t go away. “Never again,” he murmured against her ear. “I can’t come that close to losing you ever again.”

“Believe me,” she gasped as he petted her sex, ensuring her readiness, “I have no intention of being in that position again.”

They both shuddered when Jarod covered her with his larger body, entering her with one swift, hard stroke, settling himself so deep his balls slapped her with each hard, hot stroke.

Butch kissed Regan over and over, his tongue slipping between her lips as he longed for his cock to do with her cunt. She clung to him, returning his passion with her own, stroking his thick shaft and positioning it at her entrance.

“I need you, Butch,” she whimpered. “Need you so bad…”

Was there anything sweeter than one mate calling to another? With a little growl, Butch thrust inside Regan, gripping her hip and hooking her leg around his waist.

All around them, the sounds of flesh meeting flesh filled the night, the musky sweet scent of sex floating all around them. Each tasted their mate, savored the sweet music of their cries of passion and lust.

All around the little clearing, wolves in their human form lost themselves in each other, needing the release only their mates and packmates could bring. The moon broke from behind the clouds, bathing them in its ethereal light as, one after another, the pack came, howling their ecstasy.

“Hell of a night,” Jarod muttered as he sank to his knees, Belle cradled in his arms. “But damn, what a way to forget…”

“An even better way to remember,” Remmy offered.

Only the pack could understand. They celebrated loss as they celebrated life, with the sharing of their love.

* * *

“Looks like the site mop-up’s complete,” Lt. Commander Snorrasan commented.

“Just read the report from the cleanup crews. Looks like everything’s accounted for,” Colonel Roberts, the district commander, agreed, but he didn’t sound like he was celebrating a victory. “We lost some good men out there today.”

“We didn’t lose the city,” Agent Miller put in. “And we could have.”

“I don’t even want to think about what that quantity of HEU could have done in the wrong hands.” Roberts closed the report and dropped it into his file drawer. “The world’s getting more complicated, my friends, and there are fewer of us Old-Worlders left to clean up the messes.”

Snorrasan poured three fingers of whiskey into three double-shot glasses.

“I used to think that mattered. Bloodlines, parentage, where we all came from. But I’ve seen too many atrocities committed in the names of the righteous few over the last five centuries to buy all that anymore.

This crop, these wolves, turned or not, they’re a fierce pack, and loyal.

They believe in the Old World ideals, but without the corruption greed and power can bring over the years.

They’re cops first, lawmen, like us, no matter how strong their pack instincts are.

I’m beginning to think they’re a better breed.

And if their mixed blood means they don’t live to be half a millennium old, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. ”

“Here’s to lawmen,” Miller said, raising his glass in an old-fashioned toast.

“To lawmen.”

“To lawmen.”

Three glasses clinked, and the colonel tossed his whiskey down with a satisfied sigh.

“I’m not sure they need us here any more. Maybe it’s time to pass the reins to a new generation.”

“We’ll move on again, but not just yet.”

“Well, when we do, Bill, pick a name I can fucking spell.”

Snorrasan snorted. “It suits me. Care for another, Doc?”

“Ah, hell, Wyatt, just pass me the damn bottle.”