Howl

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The day after meeting with the pack, Lukas was still mad. He thought that he always would be able to count Sophia and Jason as friends, regardless of how much time they spent apart. He'd actually been glad to see them at first, but then Sophia ruined it all by mentioning his parents in an attempt to manipulate him.

He hadn't slept much that night and feeling the need to get his head on straight, he started walking around town. He hadn't put much forethought into that decision and soon found himself overheating. One of the unfortunate side effects of being a wolf was having fewer sweat glands. While he was better off than a dog, he still couldn't produce enough sweat to keep him cool in the August weather. He knew better than to start panting in public, especially after hearing the news that hunters could be in the area. Hunters knew what to look for among the mostly human population in order to single out those that weren't quite human.

Hearing the sound of running water, Lukas walked in that direction and came across a fountain. When he was younger, he'd run through fountains many times to keep cool, but doing that as a grown man might draw unwanted attention. Would the hunters take that as a symptom of being a wolf? Before he could continue in his attempt to think like the hunters, he saw a group of three people run through the fountain, all of them adults.

Denver. I forgot how crazy this place is. He smiled as he walked towards the fountain, knowing that in the middle of the city, no one would pay much attention to him if he was soaking wet unless he intended on going into a store, which he had no plans to do.

"Shit," he heard one of the other fountain goers say. "Left my phone in my pocket."

Not wanting to take the chance of ruining his own phone, Lukas took a second to set it down away from the water before walking into the fountain and standing there until he was good and drenched. Once satisfied, he retrieved his phone.

"You gotta run through it!" said the lone female of the group who had ran through just before. "Way more fun that way!"

"Probably," Lukas agreed. "But I just needed to cool off. Damn hot day."

"Least you know the right way to do it," said the young man who possibly ruined his phone. "This works better and it's free!"

Lukas chatted with the other three soaked individuals for several minutes before taking off once again, walking to nowhere in particular. Although standing in the fountain and having a friendly conversation temporarily eased his bad mood, it quickly returned once the distractions left.

Despite the fact that Sophia's words pissed him off, he still found himself considering moving back to Denver. As much as he enjoyed the friendships he had with the pack in California, what he wanted most in life was to eradicate the hunters. Relationships came second to that goal. Hunters were still active in California, but their numbers had significantly diminished in the years that Lukas had been there, taking them out before they could get the pack members.

With California a much safer place for those of his kind, it only made sense to follow the hunters as they focused their efforts in other areas. If it had been any other pack requesting his services, he didn't doubt that he'd take them up with hardly a second thought. But working with his former pack did not appeal to him, even if he could just as easily be friends with them as he was with the California pack. What really held him back were the bad memories of the events that had led him to walk away in the first place. That had mostly been Anthony's doing, and with him dead, Lukas didn't quite feel as hostile towards the rest of the pack, although he knew that there had to be some that had supported the former alpha's decisions.