"Truck's over here." Lonnie pointed in the direction of a towering chain link fence a hundred yards away.
I stepped off the concrete, and the soil called to me through the pads of my feet. This was the land of my ancestors, the wilderness that begged me to return, to train the young wolves who no longer remembered their connection with people. I felt their longing, their loneliness.
Our paths had converged centuries ago, wolf and man. Some wolves became our companion animals, the trusty dogs we kept by our sides, while otherspassed their wisdom through the virus we shared, blending their genes with ours.
"Do you feel that?"Gunnar asked."It's like the land wants us to stay."
"We could come back here,"I said."Later, when our pups are safe."
He grunted in response. I couldn't tell if he agreed or if he was in pain.
"Almost there." Amber clicked the safety on her revolver. "What the fuck is that?"
"Someone trying to steal our ride, out here?" Lonnie tilted his rifle from his shoulder and fired a warning shot.
Whoever it was didn't move. Instead, they beckoned us forward.
"I smell a pregnant wolf." The man had a heavy accent, Russian or Ukrainian, I couldn't tell. "You need my help."
He also smelled like pack. My wolf wanted to raise his snout to the sky and howl.
"How the fuck are you here?" Amber asked. "It's nuclear winter."
He squinted at her and then bared too many of his perfect white teeth. "It is spring, no? Look at this place. Green grass. Sunflower stalks shooting up. No humans for miles. It is perfect for us wolves."
"There are more of them?" Lonnie asked, glancing back at me. I gave him my best wolf shrug.
"Hurry. The wolves are fine out here, but you humans will melt."
My imagination conjured an image from myfavorite adventure movie, and I shivered. Lonnie and Amber could be complete pains in my ass from time to time, but I didn't want either of them to die of radiation sickness and all the horrible effects that went with it.
We piled into the Humvee.Amber took shotgun to Lonnie's driver, and the wolfman climbed into the backseat with Gunnar and me. The man was younger than my dad, but not by much. He wasn't much to look at, with dark hair and skin so white it looked like he hadn't seen the sun in months. I wondered if he'd been hiding out in a bunker or something. But then why would he need to? He was in the safest place on the planet.
"There are blankets in the back," Amber said, turning to look over her shoulder at the wolfman.
I didn't need to ask what she meant. By the time he had turned back around with two rough woolen blankets in his arms, I had shifted and pillowed Gunnar's head on my lap. His pain-filled gaze squeezed my heart, and I felt helpless. It would take more than a blanket to convince him to shift.
"Where are you from?" the wolfman asked. "United States?"
"We're that easy to spot, eh?" I barked a short laugh. My voice was still rough from months of disuse.
"Are you with Paskal?"
"I am Paskal now," I said, though I would probably have some trouble asserting my claim. Dad had pickedthe board of directors himself, and the shareholders thought I was incompetent, thanks to the shitty companies in my name. "Ivan's dead," I explained. I offered my hand to the stranger beside me. "Sebastian Paska."
"The astronaut." He gave my hand a brief squeeze. "Sergei Maryshov at your service. We wondered where you went. No one had heard from you since they found the empty shuttle. When Paskal started ramping up here, we knew something was off." He jerked his chin toward Gunnar. "Who's he?"
"Gunnar Grayson."
"The other astronaut." He nodded. "So it worked. Sending you to the moon invoked your latent wolf genes." I gaped at him, and he laughed. "I remember your visit, when you were young. Your dad knew about us. He wanted our help, but we refused. We are on the same side, you and I."
"Knew about … what, exactly?"
"The power plant meltdown restored our ability to shift. Our wolves got us through the worst of it. There were only five of us, at first, but as the radiation spread, our numbers increased." He glanced at Gunnar before returning his gaze to me. "What's your story?"
His scent put me at ease, which was strange. I rolled with it, scratching Gunnar's ears as I explained the chain of events, from the high doses of radiation disguised as immunizations to hijacking the shuttle and fleeing to Switzerland. The story was as much for Lonnie and Amber as it was for him, and it felt good to share it.
While I talked, Gunnar took over more of my lap, untilhis head lay on his paws and his chest pressed against my thigh. Our months in captivity had turned my prickly, "No PDA" mate into a touch-starved and cuddly wolf, and I was here for it. I wanted to shift back to my wolf form and curl around him, but there wasn't enough room.
