Careful What You Ask For

C
areful
What You Ask For
© September 2016 by Candace Blevins

A
ll rights reserved
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T
his is a work of fiction
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T
his book is
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arning
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W
hen a wolf mates with a human
, the child is nearly always a wolf. Briana was raised as a werewolf, but puberty hit and she never changed. She’s persuaded a few wolves to bite her, but it never took. At nineteen, she’s going to give it a final try. This time, she’ll ask someone who was bitten instead of being born to it, to see if it makes a difference.

S
he grew
up welcome in the Pack until she was branded a human. Her developing teenage psyche was wounded by their rejection, and she holds nothing but ill will for the Pack and all it stands for. However, it’s fine for a human to glare at the Alpha and tell him he isn’t the boss of her. Trying it as a wolf is another story. She’s determined to make a go of it as a lone wolf, but Randall — the local Alpha — has other ideas, despite the fact she’s property of his brother’s motorcycle club.

B
riana was raised
to be a werewolf and she finally feels whole, but the transition is different for everyone. She understands supernatural politics, but she’s going to have to maneuver through the highest levels of them as a brand new wolf still struggling for control.

B
riana

I
couldn’t believe
how nervous I felt as I walked into the little honkytonk bar my GPS had led me to on Sand Mountain.

Everyone in the little redneck joint looked at me as I entered, and I breathed in relief as a thin brunette stood and motioned me towards her. She was perhaps in her late forties, wearing jeans and a loose t-shirt. One look told you life had been rough on her.

I’m human, so I can’t smell wolves, but I can often spot a wolf by their attitude. Wolves tend to know they’re bad-ass and usually walk with more confidence. They also frequently think they’re better than mere humans, so you get a little of that, too. I didn’t get any of this from the brunette.

“I’m Maggie, you must be Briana.” I recognized her voice from our phone conversation, and I nodded and shook her hand. She pushed a menu in front of me as we sat. “I recommend the burger and fries.”

I laughed as I looked at the menu and saw a list of the things you could get on your burger, and a decision of whether to get a small or large order of fries. And nothing else. I gave the server my order and looked back to Maggie.

“Angelica says she knows you through Bash?”

So much for pleasantries before we start, but I wasn’t surprised. Everything about this woman told me she’d lived a hard life and she wasn’t interested in socializing. I went on alert, wondering what she’d want in exchange for biting me. My gut told me she wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of her heart.

“Yeah. I’m in and out of the RTMC clubhouse a lot.” I didn’t know what she’d think of my activities with the MC, but I wasn’t going to lie to her.

“Where do you work?”

“I clean houses. I have eleven houses — some are once a week and others are every other week. I do okay for myself. I know I may lose some of them if I have to take a long vacation, but at least a few will make do until I can return.” She’d said we were just going to get to know each other in the bar, no talk of biting or
changing
here, but I felt I needed to add, “I’ve saved up enough funds to get me through a couple of months of not working. I’ve been preparing. I also have a hundred pounds of frozen grass-fed beef in a cooler in my car, like I told you I’d bring.” New wolves eat a lot. I’d told her I’d bring the meat, and would give her money for groceries.

“Where’d you go to school?”

We spent the next hour talking about my high school years, the classes I’d enjoyed and hated, the kind of car I drove, my hobbies, and whether I’d ever milked a cow (I hadn’t). I had no idea where she was going with the conversation, but I answered her questions and tried to be friendly.

I paid for my food and hers, and I followed her off the highway to a semi-paved road, to a gravel road, to a dirt road, and finally to an old farmhouse. She walked to a weathered, wooden picnic table and sat, and I took the bench across from her.

“Your daddy was wolf, but not your mamma?”

I nodded. “He bit her after I was born. She’s wolf now.”

She looked around a few seconds before looking back to me. “Ain’t nothing in life free. You’ll stay in a cage when I can’t watch over you — at least until I’m sure you won’t kill my cows and chickens.” She shook her head, looked around again, and said, “My husband was killed ten years ago, and I’ve tried to raise my daughter so she’d be ready when it was time for her first
change
, but she ain’t handling it right. You were raised knowing how to control yourself. Raised by a daddy who knew what he was doing?”

I nodded, and she looked toward the farmhouse again before looking back to me. “This was my husband’s grandparent’s place, and they willed it to him. It’s old, but it’s mine now. I waitress at night to help make ends meet, so you’ll be in the basement with my Evie while I’m gone.”

“You’re hoping she can learn control from me as I’m figuring it out?”

She nodded. “I was bitten, and I thought my husband would always be around, so I never learnt what I’d have to do to teach her.”

B
riana

M
aggie had told
me what she expected me to do before she’d
changed
into her wolf, so now I lay on the forest floor, buck-naked and spread eagle.

I’ve been bitten before so I knew the pain I was about to feel, and it took every ounce of my resolve to remain in place as the medium sized wolf sniffed me all over. My legs wanted to kick and then jump up and run, my hands wanted to protect my face from her, and my heart felt as if it were trying to escape my chest — but I held my breath and forced myself to stay frozen.

If this didn’t work I wasn’t sure I’d try again, but I had to give it one final attempt. I’d been raised
knowing
I was a wolf. I’d always felt her inside me, but then she never showed herself and I was labeled a human when I’d had my period for a year and hadn’t
changed
.

But my self-identity never changed. I’m a human who identifies as a wolf, but if this didn’t work — I’d have to find a way to accept my humanity.

I gasped when she bit my left thigh, held my breath while she mangled my right thigh, and couldn’t hold in my screams when her teeth tore into the skin and muscle of my left shoulder.

I’d told her where to bite me, but I hadn’t told her she could just go straight in and out without ripping. The wolf’s natural instincts are to tear as they bite, and
fuck
it hurt. If this didn’t turn me I was going to be scarred something awful.

She must have realized how bad she’d hurt me, because she was a little more gentle with my right shoulder, but it still hurt like hell.

Finally, Maggie’s wolf backed up a half-dozen steps and went to the ground, her eyes on me so intense it was unnerving, but I already smelled of pain and blood and I wasn’t sure how much control she had, so I tried my hardest not to be afraid.

Everything’s hazy past that point. I remember hurting, remember thrashing in the dirt, but it was days later before I have any memory of being fully in my human brain again.

I think being responsible for little Evie forced me into my human brain, and then compelled me to gain control sooner. It’s possible I’d have done so without her needing my help, but she was a terrified little girl without anyone to help her out the right way. I wasn’t especially knowledgeable, but I knew a whole lot more than her mom.

And little twelve-year-old Evie was a hormonal bundle of pissed-off defiance. I was in a small cage just outside the jail cell for about a week — until I could stay human and hold a conversation. After the first sleepless night in the cell with Evie, I had a painfully frank talk with her mom the next day.

“If she doesn’t gain control soon, and an Alpha finds out it’s been over a year? They’ll kill her for you, since you haven’t been able to.”

Maggie crossed her arms and nodded. She knew the rules.

“I’m going to get rough with her and see if I can make her respect me enough to listen to me. Are you good with that?”

She shook her head and opened her mouth to protest, but I spoke before she had a chance. “She doesn’t see you as Alpha over her. Her wolf doesn’t respect you enough to listen. I may hurt her, but I won’t kill her — and you
have
to know I’m your last shot at this.”

Finally, she turned her back to me and slumped her shoulders. My new wolf senses let me smell her grief as she said, “Do what you have to, just don’t kill her.”

She should’ve asked for help long before this, but I didn’t berate her. I was a brand new wolf and I’d already established dominance over her,
despite
the fact whatever magic linked a maker to a new wolf was supposed to give her dominance over me from six months to a year.

“Okay, then. I think I’m ready for the bunny test.”

“Already?” She wanted to look into my eyes to verify, but her submission wouldn’t let her.

“Yeah, but not until about five minutes after I’m the wolf.” I sighed as I realized the absurdity of my having to order her to control me. I’ve heard of topping from the bottom, but this was attempting to bottom from the top. “You’ll give me the rabbit when I’m ready, and if I don’t look like I’m in total control then you’ll use your voice to help me remember I can be in control even inside the wolf. If you wimp out on me, I’ll beat the hell out of you when I come back to human.”

She swallowed as she nodded, clearly afraid of me, but it was the only way I could think to make her step up and take control.

So far, she’d only taken control when she thought her chickens or cows were in danger. I was tempted to do the bunny test with one of her chickens, but I didn’t trust myself enough.

Maggie was getting ready to leave for her waitressing job, and I walked to the basement door of the old farmhouse as I told her, “Lock me in with Evie. We’ll see if I can knock some sense into her tonight, and then we’ll let her watch from a distance tomorrow when I try the rabbit test.”

Her footsteps sounded behind me as she obediently followed me to the basement and locked us in. An ancient refrigerator was stocked with plenty of food at the rear of the cell. There was also a key frozen in water in the freezer, the theory being it would take several hours to get it out of the ice unless there was a fire, in which case we’d have the heat to melt it and escape — assuming we could stay human during the adrenaline rush.

Personally, I thought she’d just tried to make herself feel better about leaving her daughter caged and alone, though I realized Maggie didn’t have much choice. She had to work, and Evie couldn’t be trusted out of the cage. It was the risk of a fire possibly happening versus the certainty Evie’s wolf would’ve roamed the woods and either bitten or killed an innocent.

Little Evie had already run out of time, but I resolved to help her if I could. Her mom hadn’t been able to, and I had to try.

I leaned against the cell doors with my arms crossed, and stared Evie down until I heard Maggie’s car leave.

Channeling my father, I told her, “I’ve had
enough
of your bullshit attitude. You’re either going to buck up and learn some control, or the Alpha will come in and your mother will be forced to watch him kill you. Do you want to live?”

She glared at me, and I stalked towards her as I let my arms down. Without warning, I slapped her across the face as hard as I could. Her body went in the direction of the slap but she didn’t fall, and when she righted herself I was
happy
to see her fist coming towards my face. Finally, something besides apathy from her.

I blocked her fist and gave her the type of punch she’d wanted to give me, and when she punched again, I grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back — and kept twisting until I had her on her knees. “If you
change
, so will I, and that might mean a fight to the death. Submit to me, Evie. Show some respect. Show me you recognize my authority over you. Stay human and submit!”

Her skin moved, stopped, moved, stopped.

“Dammit, Evie! You can take control if you want it bad enough!”

She
finally
stopped fighting me, and I let go of her arm. Every nerve and muscle in my body felt as if it were on fire as I held my own wolf back, but if I demanded she stay in control then I couldn’t lose it either.

“I don’t want you to hit me again.”

“Then stop being a pathetic little baby who mopes around wanting attention. Step up, learn some control, and get out of this damned cage!”

“I don’t want to be a wolf!”

I lowered my voice. This didn’t have to be a screaming match. “Doesn’t really matter what you want. Your choices are to live as a superhuman who can turn into a wolf, or to be killed because you’re too weak to face reality.” Harsh words, but it was a harsh truth.

“I hate you.”

“I don’t need your love or your acceptance, Evie. I’ll be your friend if you prove worthy of friendship, but if you want us to be enemies — I can work with that, too.” I tried to sound friendly as I added, “You’re still talking. The wolf hasn’t taken over even though I pissed you off. You
can
do this.”

She’d been kneeling with her head down while she tried to hide her tears, and now she rearranged until she was on her bottom with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head still bowed. “Mom doesn’t understand how I can just sit and read. I hate my life, and books let me escape. She says a werewolf can’t be a bookworm.”

Now, I sat on the claw-scratched wood-plank floor with her and said, “Did you know a couple of U.S. Senators are wolves? I know at least two police officers who are, too. Also, the friend who introduced me to your mother has a couple of fancy college degrees, and she’s an engineer for TVA. Not the train kind, but someone who’s trying to find a renewable source of energy.”

She finally looked up enough to make eye contact, and I smiled. “You can be whatever you want. Well, you can’t play sports with the humans, so you’ll never be a professional soccer player, but otherwise, the sky’s the limit. Keep reading your books, keep learning everything you can — but you’re going to have to learn to control your wolf or you’ll never be allowed to go to college.”

She felt her jaw and winced, and I smiled again. “Here’s where it’s good to be a werewolf. Do you think you can make two
changes
before you eat? Focus on your goal — heal enough so we can eat dinner together as humans tonight without your jaw hurting. I won’t feed your wolf, even if it means I have to
change
and fight you. As soon as you come back to human, though, I’ll get some steaks out of the refrigerator and we’ll fry them up.”

It was touch and go for a few minutes, but when Evie the wolf bowed her head and I could tell she was trying to come back to human, I rejoiced inside while I kept demanding she come back.

The hot plate and pans are kept in a cabinet when not in use, so Evie didn’t destroy them while in wolf form. I waited until she was about eighty percent human before I began gathering the supplies needed to cook, and didn’t get the meat out of the refrigerator until she was speaking again.

When Maggie came home around two in the morning, I heard another car pull in behind her at the same moment I smelled terror coming from Evie.

“Who is it?”

She’d been reading, and she quickly switched the light off and jumped back into bed, but didn’t say anything.

I heard three men talking and cutting up, and listened as the four of them went into the front door and to one of the bedrooms. The three of them had their way with Maggie, but despite the fact she obeyed their commands — I was positive she wasn’t enjoying herself. Still, she didn’t fight them or tell them to stop, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

However, as they were leaving, one of them said, “Good job, mama wolf. You keep giving us what we want and we won’t get it from that sweet little girl of yours.”

If I hadn’t been caged, I’m sure I’d have killed them. As it was, I waited until they left before I called Maggie’s name loud enough I knew she heard me.

She took a shower before coming to us, though. I couldn’t really blame her for wanting to clean them off her, so I didn’t complain about having to wait.

“How long have they been doing this?”

She shook her head. “Mac had his way with me a few months after my husband died. His sons are nineteen and sixteen now, and it’s the three of them. I fought them pretty hard the first time Mac brought his sons, so they took turns with one holding me down while the other two…” She wrapped her arms around herself, looked down, and finally turned her back to me. “Then the youngest son decided he wanted my daughter and I lost it. Mac told me as long as I cooperate and do as I’m told, they’ll leave Evie alone, but if I keep fighting them then she’ll have to take on all three of ’em at once.”

I sighed and looked around, debating. Finally, I said, “My arm’s a good bit longer than Evie’s. You’re going to have another key to the cell made tomorrow, and we’re going to hang it so I can reach it but she can’t. Assuming I pass the rabbit test, we’ll hang it starting tomorrow night. The next time they follow you home, you and I will take care of them
together
.”

Maggie shook her head. “Mac’s big, and his sons are, too. We can’t take on the three of them. I don’t think the two of us could take on Mac by himself, even.”

“You’ve been trying to hide my scent, haven’t you?” She’d spread chicken manure on the grass the first day I’d come, and a few days later had put the remains of a cedar tree through a chipper, and then spread the cedar chips on the parking area to even it out.

Maggie nodded, and I sighed again as I went to the cabinet to retrieve my phone. I’d cut ties with Randall, the Alpha of the local Pack, but I wouldn’t have called him anyway, because he might decide Evie was too out of control. Calling Duke was a bit of a risk because he was careful to stay on the right side of the rules with his brother, but I’d have to trust him because I wasn’t sure what other options we had.

I texted him to please call me when he had some time to talk. I expected a call the next day, but my phone rang within minutes.

“Everything okay?’

“I’m safe for the moment, but is there any way you can come to Sand Mountain with some backup in the next couple of days? It seems I’ve been dragged into a problem unawares, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

“Backup?”

“Yeah. I can’t say much on the phone, but I’m thinking you won’t want to walk into this alone. I’ll do what I can to be your backup, but if I could handle this on my own I wouldn’t be calling you.”

“Does the situation call for politics or muscle?”

“Muscle, I think.”

“You’re safe now?”

“Yeah. They got their jollies off. I doubt we’ll see them again until they want more.”

He sighed. “Text me the address. I’ll pull some people together and we’ll come now.”

Duke hung up before I could argue, so I texted him the address and turned to Maggie.

“You knew I’d bring them in, didn’t you?”

She shook her head. “None of ‘em were willin’ to bite you. I didn’t figure they’d come to your rescue, neither.”