Dominant Species Ch. 66-67

Eric easily tracked Silvia's family along the road as they worked to catch up. The scent was easily tracked when it left the road to the John Deere dealer. They trotted up to the gate, which was unlatched and left open. Moving inside the equipment yard, they followed the scents to the service area where a door had been opened to the inside.

Just before they entered, Daniel came out followed by his wife Ann and son Jacob, who was carrying a grey wall cabinet. "Good, you guys made it. How are you, young lady?"

"Good, I'm Erica, and this is my puppy Eric. Mommy is on Derek. They are fun!" She patted his neck and jumped a little on his shoulders, encouraging him to go.

"They are werewolves, not horses, young lady." Ann came over and picked her off his back. "Aren't you just a cutie?" She giggled and buried her face in her shoulder.

"You guys wait here, we're going to see if any of these tractors still work." They walked out to the line, Jacob had opened the key cabinet and was fishing out the right keys for the big tractors ahead of them. He was finding his vision to be quite good despite the dim light of the moon. Soon they were climbing up and trying to fire them up; the newer ones, with their electronics and monitoring systems, didn't work. They soon found some older tractors that did. "Jacob, pull yours around, I saw some hay wagons in the back lot as we came by. Those will be perfect."

While they were getting the trailers hooked up, Eric had shifted and dressed inside the building and came out to help take Meghan off Derek's back. They could see already that the bite was accelerating her healing burns, and her breathing was much less labored than before. She remained unconscious, which they agreed was for the best as it beat the pain she must be enduring.

Derek went in and changed, and the twins stood with the women until the two tractors and hay trailers pulled to the front of the lot. "Jacob, we need you to take care of Meghan on the trip, keep her from rolling around and hurting yourself. Jump up there and sit against the front. Your Mom can help keep an eye on little Erica here." Jacob looked at his mom, who nodded, so he jumped up and moved into position on the trailer his dad had been driving. They helped Ann and Erica up, who immediately started running around and jumping on the hay bales surrounding the edges, and then went over to Daniel. "We can't go with you," Derek said. "We have to go back. If they made it, there are others and we can't leave them."

Daniel put a hand on his shoulder. "I understand. You are good boys, your parents would be proud of you. I can take this tractor to Corvallis, you take the other one back."

"You might find people along the way. My Alpha is offering shelter and sanctuary to all, if they come in peace they are welcome." Eric shook his hand awkwardly as he was carrying Meghan, while Daniel gave Derek a hug.

While he jumped back up in the cab, Derek jumped on the hay wagon and knelt down to take Meghan from him. He moved forward and carefully set her in Jacob's arms, leaning back against his chest as his legs encased hers and his arms carefully wrapped her torso, avoiding the healing burns. "That's weird," he said. Derek looked at him questioningly, so he continued. "She's giving me tingles up my arm where I touch her skin."

Derek snorted, but he wasn't going to spoil it for him. His wolf wasn't forward enough to talk to him but clearly his wolf recognized who she was. "Take care of her, all right? You both will end up going to Salmon to go through the changes and the schooling, and she could use a friend."

Jacob nodded, his arms squeezing her gently as a need to protect her surged forward in his consciousness. "Nothing will harm her, she is mine to take care of." His eyes flashed as he made this statement.

"I know." Turning before he could start laughing, he linked the conversation to his brother who was already firing up the other tractor. He jumped off and waved to the group, as Erica started to cry because her pet wolf was leaving. Ann gave her a hug and sat her down on her lap before they started moving to the gate. Derek jumped on the back of the other trailer as they followed them out the yard, turning different ways as they reached the road.

--

Alpha Calvin moaned as he was woken up, the sleep wasn't nearly long enough and his body protested briefly. He stood and dressed quickly, though; two of his Pack members were missing and he had to go back. He had discussed it with Alpha Reggie and Alpha Donald on the way back to Corvallis; he would lead a search party. Reggie and Donald would take the buses, dropping off the Henderson fighters and then Reggie would take the newly turned to Salmon to start the Wolf University, as they were calling it. (Wolf U just sounded right.)

The buses were the only vehicles that had escaped the fire, and Corvallis didn't have more, so they were going in wolf form. Calvin gathered volunteers- Travis, James and Rob- and they took off north as soon as the sun was below the mountains. Pushing hard, they would be there in two hours.

--

Marcus went to breakfast, Raven sitting in his lap, and then they brought a plate to the Clinic for Rachel. She was sitting up, a mess of pillows behind her, and was happy to see her family. Raven climbed up with her as Marcus brought a stand over to hold her plate. "How are you feeling his morning, honey?"

"I'm fine," she smiled. "No more pain, the bleeding has stopped. I feel good." She hugged Raven as her husband worked his hands around her belly, sniffed her deeply, and used his ear then his stethoscope to listen in.

He smiled. "Fetal heart rate is back to normal, I can't sense anything else." She started to talk, and he cut her off. "That doesn't mean you can get up. A week of bedrest you shall have, we can't take any chances with our son."

His two ladies looked at him in shock. "Son?"

He nodded. "His scent is getting strong enough I can tell." He gave her a hug and they kissed deeply, while Raven scowled and complained about them being 'gross'. "I need to go up to North Fork tonight, if the radiation may have caused you issues I need to check on Megan; she was only two months pregnant when I saw her last week." He sighed as he thought of it, it wasn't many days but with everything that had happened it seemed like a lifetime ago.

"I'll be fine here, nobody lets me do a thing anyway." She laid back as Raven snuggled in by her side. "When are you leaving?"

"Soon, I'm going to see about a car. I'll be back before sunrise." He kissed her again, gave Raven a hug and left the room.

Raven noticed her tears, and kissed her cheek. "It's all right Mom, you need to finish your breakfast. My baby brother is hungry." They both laughed as she reached for the plate.

--

Daniel was starting to feel like a celebrity. Unlike the vehicles that had sped past the small towns of Lolo and Florence, the tractor was louder and slower. This allowed the few survivors in the towns and farms to hear them coming and make their way out. He had already stopped three times, picking up a total of eight survivors, all eager to find shelter and community with others.

They were just south of Florence when four big wolves moved to surround them. Some of the passengers started to scream, one even pulled a pistol, but Ann quickly calmed them down. Calvin jumped up in the back and Jacob tossed him a pair of shorts he had quickly pulled from his bugout bag. He shifted and pulled them on, to the shock and amazement of the new refugees. "Where are Eric and Derek? I can smell them..."

"They went back to Missoula to look for survivors," Ann said. "I'm Ann, my son Jacob, husband Daniel is driving. We're Silvia's parents. We rode out the fire in our safe room under the house."

"I'm thrilled to meet you guys," Calvin said as he smiled widely. "We'll be going then, we are his Pack and we can't leave them to do it alone. You're heading to Corvallis?"

"Yes, with whatever strays we find along the way."

One of the strays piped up. "We would see vehicles at night. One night a military truck came, the men beat up a few people and took Jessie away. After that, we stayed hidden. When we smelled the fire, we took a chance on this tractor."

"So there may be more?" Calvin looked around, already thinking.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Ann said. "You might have to search house to house to find everyone."

Calvin walked to the back and jumped off, dropping the shorts her shifted back to his wolf. Picking them up in his teeth, he put them in the back of the trailer and turned, letting out a long howl of greeting. He reached out through the bond, but it was too far. As the tractor started to move again, the four wolves raced north in a line, happy to hear the boys had at least survived the fire.

--

"What's the plan," Derek said to his brother over the noise of the tractor. They were passing over the bridge they had found Meghan under, back into the burned out wasteland that used to be Missoula.

"We'll go back to Daniel's house first," he replied. "I want to get the guns, ammo, and supplies that he had down in the room. Then we'll head east until we reach the edge of town and make our way back along the edges of the fire damage until we get back here."

Derek nodded. "We barely survived even with all the preps Daniel had made, so there's no point in checking the bad areas." He looked around at the devastation. "We might be able to scavenge stuff later, but this thing isn't that fast. We've only got about three hours until we have to be heading south if we're going to make Corvallis by dawn. I'm going to shift and run along, just in case." He stripped and changed into his dark brown and black wolf and jumped off, moving silently through what used to be a nice residential neighborhood. He didn't find anything by the time they reached Daniel's house.

Eric went down into the room that had saved their lives and handed stuff up for Derek to take and carry to the hay wagon. It only took a few minutes, as the fire had taken everything not in the room, but they had a dozen rifles, more handguns, plenty of ammunition and a dozen cases of MRE's, plus some more clothes for them. When they got back going again, they were shocked when a familiar voice came over the Pack link. "ERIC! DEREK! Where are you," their Alpha asked.

"We're just east of Silvia's parents house, moving to the east end of town. We are doing a drive through sweep for survivors." Eric had a huge smile on his face as he replied.

"Great to hear you guys again. We ran into the Forrests on the road, they were doing the same." He paused for a second. "Keep doing what you plan, what is the town like?"

"Anything in city center and west is gone. The rains came late, so there are still spots to the east and on the south side of the river that aren't completely burned out, that's where we are headed."

"OK, we are north of Lolo and should be to town in twenty minutes. We'll run to the east end on the south side of the river and search on the way back, we'll meet you at the bridge."

"Sounds good, Alpha. We don't have a lot of time, this tractor tops out at twenty miles an hour with this trailer and we have to leave by midnight to make it back to Corvallis before dawn." Derek broke off the communication as they continued to search through the town. There wasn't much hope in this area; even the houses that weren't burned, when he checked the people were bloated from radiation deaths. He only found one person who looked like he was killed by the fire, probably by the thick smoke that blew across the town. "Derek, there's nothing here. Let's move down by the river and start working our way back."

They reported their findings to their Alpha, whose group was now reaching the east end of town on the south side of the Clark Fork River and the campus of the University of Montana. Calvin told him to head back to the bridge and work the south side east, then they would meet and work their way back out of town on the south side of 93.

Alpha Calvin split his people up to move through the campus; it wasn't long before they smelled humans, and they were alive and cooking something. Travis led the way to a courtyard where a few dozen people, mostly women with a few men, were huddled around a barrel. They were drinking cokes and eating meat they had taken from the cafeteria freezer room. Their attention was on the fire, so when a wolf ran in, he was almost on top of them before a girl noticed him and screamed.

The group spun to face the four wolves bearing down on them. One of the men unholstered a pistol and pointed it at the lead wolf, just as Travis stopped and shifted into his human form. There were gasps and screams as the well-built naked guy stood up, and they didn't end when the other three shifted as well.

"Fuck me," said the guy with the gun as he lowered it. "Werewolves?"

"Exactly," Travis said as he approached. "I'm Travis, this is James and Rob, and this is our leader and Alpha, Calvin Pierce. We come in peace, we are searching the town for survivors."

"What if you find them," a young lady asked. "Do we become like you?"

"You will have that option if you choose it, Miss, but no one will force you to do anything. Here's the situation; there aren't many people left, as you know. Werewolves survived better than most because we are stronger, have better immune systems and heal faster. As a result, it fell to us to help those around us. We have Packs from Salmon to Henderson that are organizing with the surviving humans to form communities, places we can survive and thrive in the future. Those who join us will find shelter, food and security. It's up to you, though- if you aren't interested, we will move on and look for others."

The lady looked him in the eye, she wasn't the only one struggling not to look down at the prime specimens nude before them. "Can you give us a moment to talk?" He nodded and they left the area, returning only when they were waved back. The man with the pistol was the apparent leader of the group. "We accept your offer, on the condition that we can leave if we don't like what we find."

Calvin walked forward and shook his hand. "I would accept no less. Come on, we have some walking to do. We'll meet up with your ride along the way as we search the town. Stay together and head west on 5th Street." The four shifted back to their large wolves to the amusement of the group, and they all headed west off campus and into the remains of the town.

It took less than an hour to meet up with Eric and Derek, there were lots of wagging tails and howls of joy as they came together. The group of humans watched the greetings, then moved onto the wagon as Eric waved them up. "Don't worry about them, they need their wolf forms to smell for survivors. They'll spread out and keep fairly close to us, but we're going to start heading out of town. Calvin said you were all at the University, how did you survive?"

"We were all in the same class when it happened, a chemistry lab in the basement of one of the buildings." The guy with the pistol had sat close to the front so he could talk. "When the power went out, most people ran outside to the light, which ended up killing them. We had Bunsen burners for light, and we had chemicals out, so we decided to wait out the power outage where we were. When we finally figured out what was going on, it was too late to save those who went upstairs. We hid in the tunnels between buildings, figuring that would shield us. The tunnels are still labeled as fallout shelters."

Another girl picked up the story. "You saw the bodies, there were too many to bury. We kept together, but never found other survivors. We've been living off food from the cafeteria, coming out only at night. You aren't the first people we've seen, but when those trucks came through one of us saw the girls tied in the back and we knew they were bad news, so we stayed hidden."

"That's a good thing," Eric said. "Those bastards are all dead now. We took them out the night before the fire, and rescued all we could."

They were moving along near Spartan Park when Travis noticed the scent of humans. Letting out a howl, he ran towards the house just as the door opened and a man came out. Before anyone could react, the man raised a shotgun and Travis was knocked down by the hail of buckshot.

"NO! CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!" Eric shouted as the others ran to his aid.

--

Alpha Robert Stevens woke up in the middle of the day, the sheets and blankets of the bed tossed about him and smelling strongly of sex. He smiled as he thought of the previous day; every moment he spent with his mate was special, the bond pulling them tighter with each moment, with each time they made love. They had both been exhausted when they made it home to Tammy's house last night; he had a full day of classes at Wolf U plus he was shadowing Josi and helping to ground the new changes, while she had her hands full with all the people at the clinic. Both were working so hard they barely had time to eat, much less see each other, but the mate link made things better.

Robert was an Alpha with a Pack of one, Tammy. He had talked to Josi after he had calmed down from his shift and changed back to human form. They had agreed that it was best if he wait to form his Pack until Reggie and the other Alphas could return. In the meantime, he was to watch and learn.

He looked over at Tammy sprawled face down beside him, the gentle glow of the sun through the blinds illuminating her soft curves. Her hair was almost covering her face, some of it blew out of the way when she breathed. He would have moved it out of her face, but right now his left hand was trapped under her; she must have rolled onto it during the night. His palm was facing up as his arm went down across her stomach, leaving his hand cupped over the curlie hairs of her sex. He didn't want to move her, his wolf was quite content to have things as they were. She was naked in bed with him, she bore his scent inside and out, and his mark was prominent on her neck and shoulder.

His fingers curled up, finding purchase against her mound. He shifted his wrist slightly so his middle finger ran the length of her slit, feeling the outer lips part for him as he curled it up. She was in a deep sleep, so he watched her face as he moved the digit slowly, tantalizingly up and down. The small movements allowed it to part the gates, giving him access to the swollen and rapidly moistening treasure below. He kept the motions short and light, not wanting to wake her yet he could smell her body's natural response to him. Soon his finger was well lubricated and sliding gently from her clit to her sex, and her hips started to rock slightly in search of more.

He added a second finger, moistening it then using them together to spread her lips apart. He could feel her clitoris rising up, and he trapped it gently between his middle and ring finger as he continued to tease her. The rocking and the motion were building up her body for what her mind wasn't aware of yet; it wanted more, it wanted him.

He slid down and hooked his fingers, curling them until they penetrated her sex. She moaned in her sleep with the penetration, and her hips started to move as if they had a mind of their own. Working with her rhythm, he got first one knuckle, then two deep into her. She moved her body up, seeking the source of the pleasure as a plant reaches for the sun, and this allowed him to bury the fingers inside her while her clit rubbed on his palm. The noises she made started to get louder and more frequent, she was no longer deeply asleep. Her eyes were moving behind the lids, a sure sign she was in REM sleep and was dreaming. From her body's reaction, he had a good idea of what kind of dream she was having.