Page 2 of Wolf Bound

“Alright, dear.”

Her dad ended the call and Kira knew he was calling the pack leader to coordinate everyone’s efforts. She was scared, worried that the men might try to get her again or hurt her parents or the others in their pack.

She glanced out the back window. But her dad was staying in his car while Kira and her mom stayed in hers, watching the house as the men climbed out of the van, shaking their heads. The driver shoved his finger at the chest of the man Kira had bitten, pushing him back.

“Which man did you bite?” her mom asked.

“The one in the black pants, black sneakers, and shirt with a skull on it. The other man was the driver.” Kira could still taste the man’s copperish blood in her mouth, smell his body odor—he’d been drinking beers and hadn’t bathed recently, his skin sweaty and his black hair greasy. He’d eaten chili filled with onions—which she’d also smelled on his breath.

The van had smelled of discarded fast food hamburger sacks and greasy fries all over the front seats and the back.

The men walked into the one-story house covered in green siding and sporting a gray roof. Big windows were covered in blinds. The neighborhood was older, established, the vegetation—trees and shrubs—overgrown.

Then a black pickup pulled into the driveway behind the van and parked, effectively blocking it in. Kira recognized it was Rutherford’s truck. He got out of the vehicle and then she saw other vehicles pull up and park in front of the house.

That’s when her dad left his car and came up to the passenger’s side window. “Which man did you bite?” he asked Kira.

“The man wearing black pants, black sneakers, and a shirt that had a skull and crossbones on it. He had black hair and a beard and mustache.”

“We’ll get him, honey. Don’t you worry.”

Her father didn’t sound angry with her either. But what were they going to do with the two men?

Five of the pack members, including her father, went to the door of the house and Rutherford knocked on it.

The driver of the van opened the front door of the house, and Rutherford and the other men shoved their way into the house. Then the door slammed shut.

“What’s going to happen?” Kira knew that if her father and the others killed the two kidnappers, they could eventually all be caught and tried for murder. She didn’t want any of them to be in trouble for “taking care” of these criminals.

“It depends on how the kidnappers react.”

It seemed to take forever before Kira’s dad came out of the house. “It’s done. Go home. I’ll follow you there.”

It wasn’t until they arrived at home that her dad hugged Kira and her mom hugged her again. He told her what had happened. She had to know. It was the wolf’s way. “They committed suicide. Evidence was all over the place, indicating they had kidnapped other children, and none of the kids had ever returned home. So you did what was right. The men felt such remorse that they hanged themselves.”

Kira didn’t believe they would do it. For all her youth, she recognized what her father was telling her. They had helped them find death.

Shortly after they arrived home, Rutherford showed up to speak to them. He was a kindly gentleman of sixty in human years, a gray wolf with graying hair, but he was strong and capable and would probably run their pack for several more decades.

They all sat in the living room and Rutherford said, “We can’t know how terrified you truly were without having been in your place, but what you did was the right thing. From all the evidence we found in the house—for over a decade, those two men had kidnapped children, and they were never punished for it. They felt so badly for their sins, knew they were going to prison, and decided to hang themselves.”

“You helped them.” Kira was known to be tenacious at times.

Rutherford cast her a hint of a smile. “They might have needed a little persuasion. Not that they didn’t deserve it.”

“But will anyone find out you were all involved?” That was what concerned Kira the most.

“They left suicide notes. Both wrote their own. They confessed to the kidnappings they had committed. With their confessions, the police will be busy looking into cold cases that they had never been able to solve,” Rutherford said. “Okay, I’m headed back to my shop before my mate sends out the police looking for me. Just know this, you not only saved yourself, you saved other potential victims.” Then he patted her on the head and left the house with her father.

That’s when Kira decided she wanted to do something when she grew up where she could protect their people and others who might be harmed by men like these.

1

The youngest of quadruplet brothers, Fisher Greystoke, was having pizza with his brothers before he took a run as a wolf through the Rocky Mountain National Park near the pack’s territory in the town of Greystoke. “Are you sure none of you want to go with me?”

He didn’t mind running as a wolf alone, but it was more fun going with one of his brothers or cousins or one of the other wolf pack members.

“I’ve got a couple of patients to keep an eye on.” Heath was drinking soda with his pizza instead of a beer because of it.

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