Running From the Devil

Chapter 4

a/n  I'd love some feedback.  How's the story line so far?  Is it holding your interest?  Are the characters believable? Thanks

Ben

I had followed the old Buick through a maze of neighborhoods for over an hour.  The woman driving was definitely trying to elude or reveal any possible tails before heading towards a small quiet neighborhood.  About a half hour into the chase I let myself be pulled in closer to the car, my wolf nature urging me to prove my dominance as if I was in a race.  The woman in the passenger seat actually turned her head and looked at me.  Her hair was different... ah a wig, "smart girl" I thought. But no one could miss those eyes. 

For a second I felt like I was drowning in a sea of emerald lava.  Shit!  I skidded to a stop immediately cursing my idiocy.  Once I was sure she couldn't see me anymore I went back after the car at a relaxed pace refusing to let myself get pulled into the hunt again. What if she had gotten a close look?  Wolves don't generally run through city streets.  What if I scared her?  Could she tell it was me? 

I snorted then, laughing at myself.  She didn't even see me when she bumped into me on the street, how on earth would she connect the dots between a stranger she didn't see and a wolf running down the road.  If my luck held out she'd think I was a dog.  That made me growl.  I was not happy about her thinking my feral side was anything resembling a lap dog.  Just try to put me in a sweater! That thought made me start laughing again.  This woman is going to be the death of me. 

Finally we came to a stop in front of a brick house and the ladies scurried inside. After watching for a few minutes to make sure they were staying for awhile I trotted off in search of some clothes.  That's one of the downsides to changing your shape, your clothes just don't survive.  It's why our pack never spent much money on garments preferring plain t-shirts and jeans we could get fairly cheap.  We all enjoyed shopping at Goodwill for everyday clothes.  Where else can you get a perfectly decent shirt for $2.00?

We weren't poor, not anywhere near it, but if we all wanted to spend $30 on a shirt and $80 on jeans that we were going to end up ripping through a few days later we'd have to pick up even more jobs than we take on now and not many of us were workaholics like that.  If you give us a job out in the forest or working in the garden, ask us to lead an expedition over a mountain or teach someone how to canoe and you'd have a line of volunteers.  Ask most of us to sit in a building 5 days a week and we'd hotly protest. 

There were a few of us who were a little more civilized and welcomed taking jobs in the city or working as the pack accountant but they were few and far between, maybe as few as 1 in 5 and in a pack of 200 that wasn't many.  We didn't have wolves in the back of our minds urging us to submit to our wild natures, we are wolves.  We are as much wolf as we are human and it makes it hard to fit into polite society most of the time. 

Finally I found a clothesline full of things that hadn't been taken in for the night.  Unfortunately for me the only options were women's skirts and tops.  I jumped up and nipped a short plain looking thing in blue with my teeth and tugged it off the line before heading back to the brick house the woman was in.  I wanted to be ready in case she needed me in human form and most people don't like it when you enter their house naked. 

The thought of those electric eyes on my body started making me excited in all sorts of ways and I struggled to keep myself from bursting in and demanding a taste of her skin.  I bet she had a wicked tongue.  Fuck!  I growled and shook my head to refocus my attention to the matter at hand. 

Finally I could feel Steven's presence in my mind.  He must have shifted to wolf form to contact me.  "Where?"  came the impression.  I stared at the street sign before sending the image to Steven.  It wasn't like talking on a cell phone, we were limited to images, emotions, impressions. The closer the relationship the better the communication between two people gets.  The clearest connection is between a mother and her young children.  Once they hit the teenage years that fades to a normal family bond. Besides that the closest bond is the mate bond which never grows old or fades.