Of Doms & Subs

Can't Stop Here, This is Wolf Country

"Please, please, please let me get as far as Tacoma," I begged the flagging gas gauge of my trusty, old, lime-green Jeep. Experience told me that it was wishful thinking because traffic was bound to hit before Everett. There was undoubtedly a Seattle pack and the fewer the stops in their area, the smaller the chance of getting picked up by the local werewolves.

A schoolbus drew parallel to me in the left lane so a giant cartoon lupine mascot filled my peripheral vision. "Can't stop here, this is wolf country," I muttered.

If I barrelled through, gas up in Tacoma, then I could avoid the dreaded I-5 parking lot in both Seattle and Portland on the Friday of a long weekend. Even though I started out in the British Columbia Rockies my destination was the central Oregon Cascade mountains, it was faster to cut across lower British Columbia, down the I-5 corridor, and then back across the Willamette Valley.

This route also happened to avoid the territory of the famous Adam Hauptmann and his pack. Oh sure, he was the perfect gentleman in the media and his wolves were seemingly well-behaved, but you know what they say about things that are too good to be true. I was submissive and had no delusions about where I'd end up in the hierarchy. Hell, humans had taught me that long before I was Changed two weeks ago. And female werewolves were inevitably absorbed into a pack because some old grand high poobah declared that we couldn't fly solo.

So why was I zigzagging all over the Pacific Northwest instead of rolling over like a good little bitch? Having been submissive for over thirty years, I'd long ago learned avoidance is the best way to avoid conflict. When that didn't work, an acerbic tongue and short temper kept most people from getting too close to abuse that aspect of my personality. Too many people think that passivity is a synonym for doormat.

My luck, or rather fuel tank, ran out in the U District. Red and blue lights lit up the rearview mirror just as I squeezed through a yellow light towards a gas station. "Please don't be for me, please don't be for me," I chanted as I pulled into the lot. "Of course not, when has everything gone your way on this godsforsaken trip." I lowered my window, plastered a meekly congenial if slightly vapid look on my face, and gripped my license and registration in a sweaty fist.

"Good evening." The officer bent to look in the window. We both stilled the instant we caught the other's scent. I dropped my eyes immediately, partly to avoid staring at the scar that marred his face, and offered the documentation. Please don't ask any questions, I prayed silently.

"Are you traveling by yourself, Ms. Jones?" Whatever deities that haven't been listening to me can go shove it someplace where the sun don't shine.

"Yessir. I'm headin' back home to Oregon from visitin' family." Mostly the truth. I did stop in Vancouver to visit my brother. I put the Southern drawl on fairly heavy. The twang and the manners to go with often smooth the way with people in uniform, even if I hadn't lived South of the 44th parallel in fifteen years.

"Oh, you have family here?" Must remain calm. Normal, even breaths will help control the heartrate.

"Vancouver," I smiled. So what if it was Vancouver, Washington and not Vancouver, British Columbia?

"BC?"

"Yessir." His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly at the blithe lie.

"You must be a member of the Portland pack," he said, eyeing my ID a little too closely for comfort now.

"Yessir."

"I'm just gonna go run these." My dad was a cop and his face would go blank like that whenever he was gathering evidence of my brother's or my misdeeds. This was so many flavours of not good.