happening, because the pain wasn’t so bad, and I couldn’t see, or hear those bastards taunting me anymore—I realized they must have taken me somewhere, and left me, because I wasn’t in my house anymore. I wasn’t tied to a chair. I was curled up on my side, on the ground, outside—hard earth—sticky with blood, but not really hurting, and Lobo was licking my face.”
He reared up in bed, alarmed. “Lobo! I yelled at him to run when those guys grabbed me—but he must have come back. If those bastards got him—”
“He’s fine,” I said, putting my arms around him and hugging him tight. “He came here to me the morning that… that they said you were dead. I’ve been looking after him. He’s outside—do you want me to—?”
I started to get up, but he pulled me back until we were both lying down again. “Later. Long as I know he’s okay.”
“So Lobo found you,” I said. “And then what, the police arrived? They took you to the hospital?” I was struggling to make sense of it.
He made a small, negative movement with his head on the pillow. “No cops, no doctors, no hospital. Just Lobo. But that wasn’t right, because he was
“I wasn’t scared. I was glad. I relaxed, and knew he was going to take care of me. I thought I’d died and been born again as a wolf cub—as one of Lobo’s pups. I thought, I get to have another chance at life, this time as a wolf, and I thought maybe that would be better than what I was the first time around.”
I said, “So you died and turned into a wolf?”
He laughed, and rolled on top of me. “Does this feel like wolf to you? Is this fur? Are these claws? Is my nose cold?” He licked my face, then kissed me and laughed again. “I’m not dead, and I am definitely still a man!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, my love. I’m just telling you the last thing I remember, I guess it was a dream, and I was asleep until I woke up in the dark out there and heard you call my name.” His face wrinkled in puzzlement. “How did you know I was there?”
“I didn’t. I thought you were dead, I told you.” I closed my eyes and held on to him as tightly as I could, feeling the unmistakable warmth and weight of him pressing me against the bed, inhaling his scent, yet even still fighting the fear that I’d lost my mind. “Oh, this must be a dream,” I said sadly.
“Does this feel like a dream?” he asked. “How about this? Hmmm?”
Surely no dream could ever be so real, so physical.
We made love until sleep overwhelmed us both.
When I woke, the little room was full of daylight, and I was alone in a bed with tumbled sheets and the heavy, cloying odor of sex. He must have just gotten up to go to the bathroom, I told myself, but anxiety made me sit bolt upright, and I couldn’t keep it out of my voice as I called, “Cody?”
There, blocking the doorway, in his customary sleeping spot, was the wolf. He lifted his head in response to his name and sleepily blinked his amber eyes. I recognized the animal I loved, but this time I also saw a second awareness, a different intelligence, looking back at me, and I knew.
I CAN’T SAY that I understand, even now, but there’s no doubt that the wolf Cody rescued was no ordinary animal. Once upon a time, a man called Cody saved a wolf. Later, when the man was about to die, that wolf saved him, taking his soul inside himself. I called the wolf Cody before I knew how true that was.
He comes out at the dark of the moon. For me, it’s wonderful. Life has been good to me. I have my work, the company of my wolf, and four nights a month, the undivided attention of my lover. For him, he’s told me, the wolf- time passes like sleep. He’s conscious, he can think like the man he was only during the moon-dark days, and although he loves me dearly, there’s more to life than love. I’m not afraid of him, but there are some bad men out there who should be.
When you really think about it, which is more frightening: a man who turns into a wolf, or a wolf who becomes a man?
Linnea Sinclair
Courting Trouble
“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.”
Captain Serenity Beck knew the very moment things went horribly wrong. It happened right between the words “confiscate” and “impound,” which—thanks to the translator encircling her left ear—she heard twice: first in Nalshinian and the second time in Trade-Standard.
“We repeat. Refusal to pay grants us license to confiscate your cargo.” The bulbous orange triped that bore the title of Esteemed Dockmaster of Jabo Station reached forward to stroke the blue-tinged holoscreen hovering over his desk. An image of the
“It’s not a matter of refusal.” Serri spoke slowly, hearing the echo of her cadence through the dockmaster’s lang-trans, which—since Nalshinian ears were under the jaw—dangled around his blubbery neck. “We’re a Dalvarr- licensed hauler under contract to Widestar. You have no authority to impose a tariff.”
“We have your ship in our bay.” Filar jabbed one stubby digit at the
Thirty minutes wasn’t even enough time to alert the Dalvarr Trade Collective or Widestar corporate legal division, and Filar knew that. Just as he knew there was no way the
Serri was out of options. All she had left was her anger—and nothing to lose by unleashing it. She fisted her hands at her sides. “You motherless son of a Garpion whore! It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll allow you or your people access to my ship!”
Too late she realized the translator’s vocabulary was limited to trade, technical, and legal terms. His Esteemedness looked genuinely puzzled. “We do not see what climactic conditions have to do with the fact that we have in our possession an order of procurement authorized by the Council of Jabo Station United.” He wheezed loudly. “And by the way, we have three maternal parents, none of whom reside in the Garpion Sector.” His four tiny eyes blinked rapidly. “Thirty minutes, Captain Beck.”
Serri strode from the office, hands still fisted. She had thirty minutes to collect her business partner, Quin, and try to figure out why Gop Filar so desperately wanted the forty-seven containers from Widestar that Rez Jonas assigned to them three shipdays ago. She should never have trusted Rez, but one of Quin’s favorite lectures was
