Page 8 of Watcher's Omega

“Watch me!”

We parked her mini van at my place and walked into town proper. The whole damn place was a buzz with energy. It was charged for war. While Thomas (the irony of his name didn’t surprise me) might find a few sympathizers here and there most of the pack was ready to give him a free autopsy. Someone might get to him before we did.

“Would that be a bad thing?” Melanie asked me as we walked past Mama Dragon’s restaurant. The smell of the greasy meat wafting through from inside was enough to make my mouth water. Maybe Kat was right and I hadn’t eaten enough after giving blood.

“No, but we should eat,” I stopped.

“Huh? Because your stomach is growling or because your wild wolf senses are sparkling?”

“Nothing on me sparkles,” I rolled my eyes and back tracked to the restaurant.

I pushed open the front door and everyone inside the restaurant turned to look at me. Okay. Maybe my wild wolf senses did sparkle because there was a man in a ski mask at the register demanding that the teenage wolf girl behind it give him all the money. He turned the gun on us, wafting his scent through the restaurant. He smelled like burnt hair and gunpowder. Fireworks. Liquor.

“Well, shit,” Melanie sighed. “So much for a burger and fries. I’m totally getting two milkshakes after this!”

“GET ON THE FUCKING FLOOR!” the man bellowed and pointed his gun down where everyone else was laying.

I did and Melanie shot me a confused look. She was a guard. She was trained to negotiate with idiots. I was trained to save lives and born to protect my pack.

“Mother, open the way,”I whispered inside my thoughts and could already feel the fur sprouting between my toes. Yep. I was probably getting shot tonight. Thankfully, both of my dads were good surgeons and I was a quick healer.

Melanie stepped over a man’s trembling leg as I stretched mine out to keep the door from slapping the little bell and closing. I tapped the man’s leg and when he looked at me tugged him backwards across the tile floor until he had one foot out of the door. One down about seven more to go. Maybe this one had a brain and would get back up. Though, with the pack link roaring, it would only be a matter of time before someone crashed through a window and saved the day if this drew out long enough.

I belly crawled further inside the restaurant, leaving behind one shoe to keep the door from jingling that forsaken bell. I tapped two teenagers on the calves and pointed toward the door. One crawled too high and caught the attention of the masked man. He turned the gun on us but I stood before he could shoot.

“Look, let the kids go. They’re all wolf kids,” I said. “Why harm the pack’s pups? I know the owner. I know how to open that. I suck his dick some weekends.” It was a lie and the owner of the restaurant was a dragoness whom I would never lie about sleeping with but the masked man considered my offer.

“Go on!” He poked the gun at the wolf girl behind the counter who whimpered.

“Come on, sweetheart. Take the rest of the night off,” I said, waving her to me and then instantly shoving her toward the door where the other two teenagers had already left. That left me, Melanie, the masked man, and four shewolves who had left multiple copies of the same Aben Radcliffe book on their table. What a fucking way to ruin a book club.

“What about them?” I asked, stepping closer to Melanie and putting more of a meat shield between them and the gun. “They’re women. They’re wolf women. They probably have wolf pups at home.”

Melanie glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. I wasn’t lying. They were shewolves. If Thomas added his own connotation to what I said, that was on him. He might’ve but I never got the chance to ask him. He spun on his heels and jumped over the counter and fled out the back of the restaurant. Melanie followed on his heels but I went for the front door, kicking my other shoe off.

“Probably realizes how many wolves he hurt. Broke his own rules or something,”my wolf rattled off from inside his inner sanctum.

I circled around the restaurant, and he ran right into my shoulder. His gun flew into the air as I sank down, my wolf finally bursting past my defenses. Thomas scrambled to grab it but a good furry shoulder to his crotch took him down. I was wild born and fed the sort of balanced diet only a paranoid adoptive carrier who was also a doctor could concoct. I was bigger in wolf form than he expected, and the panic ran down his leg.

Other guards were coming. Static crackled across my skin. Someone was going to die soon. Someone was going to leave Earthside forever and it wasn’t going to be me. Thomas punched me in the head and I saw stars as my muzzle tore into his belly button. He jerked back tearing flesh from his own body. One of the book club shewolves ran out of the restaurant and walloped him – I had no other word for what she did – the shewolf walloped him with a tote bag that swung as if it was weighted down with rocks. She lost herself to her temper once he fell to the ground. I slunk back, letting her take the charge. He’d endangered wolf pups in front of her and shewolves never took kindly to that. Up this close and personal she smelled pregnant too. Thomas was a dead wolf. Maybe he wasn’t going to die for the hate crime that sent several people to the hospital and scarred many others but his door crackled into being as a big burly guard pulled the shewolf away from him.

“Let go of me! We have the right to apprehend anyone using a weapon against a packmate! Let me go! I’m not finished!” the shewolf howled and swung her tote bag at the legs of the guard who did a little dance to avoid being knocked around.

“He’s finished,” I said in yips and barks.

That’s when she went dead weight like a sack of potatoes and started to cry.

“Get her a medic. She’s pregnant,”I said over the pack link to the guards all standing around looking at the dead man and the door.“Maybe him too but I don’t think they’re going to get here in time. She beat him around the head really good. I think she has a bag of rocks.”

“Books,” the guard said, picking up her bag which she snatched from him and hugged against her torso.

The other book club shewolves gathered around her as the ambulance came into sight. I waited patiently while Melanie told the other guards what had happened inside the restaurant, bragging about my wild born senses. This was one thing I didn’t credit to that. I was hungry and Thomas decided that it was the easiest place to rob around the same time. I couldn’t have predicted that if I had tried. I wasn’t a seer. I was merely guided by packmates who had moved on through their doors.

Melanie had to head home to her mate and I had to head back to the hospital. She offered to give me a ride after I had shifted back so we could hug goodbye. I declined her offer, deciding to hitch a ride back with the ambulance so she could get home before her mate got worried enough to come out and see what was actually going on. Which, put simply, Thomas was broke and needed money to get off of Hemlock Mountain.

“I guess he forgot his paws still worked,”my wolf mused inside his inner sanctum.

Chapter Six