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  WHITE HAT WOLF

  by

  Buffi BeCraft Woodall

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  This story is dedicated to all the fans of the Blue-Collar Werewolves. You guys ROCK!

  Bradley Starr jerked awake. Nausea and bile burned in his stomach at odds with the cold layer of sweat sticking to his skin. Old images of pain and horror flickered behind his eyelids, waiting for him to sleep again. Since he was alone, he gave in to the shudder before rubbing his whiskered face with the palms of both hands. Just a dream, he reminded himself. Dreams had no power over you.

  He was a grown man, not a helpless child. In charge of his own destiny. With a snort, Bradley rolled out of bed. He was glad for cool caress of the ceiling fan on his naked skin. Even the heavy gold chain around his neck seemed to soak in the cooler air.

  Pacing around his room, he glared at the sturdy wood bed he"d bought from his brother a year ago. It had been a point of connection, however fragile the thread between them might be. Then again, then reminder that his twin"s hands had put that particular piece of furniture together didn"t help him get over the dream. Already, the familiar guilt weighed down on him.

  Bradley sighed. He"d never get back to sleep now. Reliving the god-forsaken nightmare that was his childhood, his legacy, held no appeal at two in the morning. Neither did remembering why he was currently alone in his bed.

  Okay, that particular thought wasn"t so bad. With Nicole the Demon Bitch gone, not only did he have the bed all to himself, but he could actually sleep in it. Fingering the gold chain, Bradley hoped his devil-spawned wife all the worst of luck in the darkest reaches of hell. A werewolf and a succubus, now that was a terrifying match. Or had been. Until he"d made his deal with a different kind of devil.

  Dragging on jeans and a t-shirt, Bradley stalked through the suburban fantasy house that Nicole had picked out. He longed to get out. To run. To go home to his pack.

  Instead, he bundled into his four-by-four truck and drove around his beloved hometown of Palestine, Texas. Bradley loved how the town nestled into the surrounding woodlands. Civilization and the raw, wild of nature, side by side. Yeah, there was some awful good hunting to be had out there.

  Bradley"s brain chose that moment to regurgitate. The foul memory bubbled to the surface and broke free. Running. Chasing prey through the woods. Only this was before he and his pack brothers had been saved from the old alpha, Garrick Moser. The prey stumbled, falling from two legs to hands and feet. The prey, a young woman, cried and scrambled, trying to regain her feet to run. Bradley held back. He knew what would happen next. And he wanted no part of it. The part of him that remembered his humanity turned away in disgust as the older ones circled, toying with her. Their attention focused on their prey, no one noticed as Bradley slunk away with his tail between his legs.

  There was nothing he could do for the girl, but maybe, he could find where Garrick had hidden his brother this time. Bradley was desperate with worry for his twin’s disappearance. The alpha never fed Brandon properly after the things he did. Terrible things that Bradley couldn’t stop. Fighting back, trying to be the hero, always made it worse for his brother.

  A shadow detached from the trees, blocking his flight back to the pack’s lair on the outskirts of town. The alpha wolf was more than twice his size. Crouching, lowering his head in submission as a lesser wolf, Bradley nearly pissed on himself in terror. The alpha didn’t bother baring his teeth. He’d already had proved his dominance ages ago. Garrick Moser Changed, his body drawing upward into giant tree of a man. The grizzled gray and tan fur flowed back like the parting of the Red Sea. Bradley had seen that once in a movie and wished they had their own Moses to set him and his lesser packbrothers free from Garrick and his wardens. He figured they’d all die at the alpha’s whim, if not sooner, then a more grisly later.

  Garrick crossed his arms over the hairy chest that was bigger than the barrels that the coyotes used to smuggle stuff that they didn’t want the human cops finding. He looked down at Bradley. Still, in wolf form, he cringed. Groveling worked best to appease the alpha and Bradley would do pretty much anything to keep from taking his twin brother’s place as pack omega. Real love meant that you’d do anything to protect the ones you cared about. It shamed him, but he couldn’t help it. Late at night the fear that he was like Garrick often held him in its claws, making him sick to his stomach.

  The Change pulsed through him, forced into action by the alpha’s power over his pack. They were bound to him and Bradley didn’t have enough power to resist. His own fur pulled back into his skin as he was pulled upright onto his two overlarge feet. With more food available, he’d grown more than his brother. So, they were identical twins that would never be really identical anymore. Not while starvation and the other things continued. Even now Bradley could picture the vacant, lights-are-on-but-nobody’s-home, look that was always in Brandon’s eyes.

  Bradley sucked in a shakey breath, stilling the urge to run and hide. That would be bad, then he"d become the prey. Every waking moment, he spent trying to stay out of the way of the werewolves. Just like in the movies, Garrick’s buddies were the real monsters. So, Bradley reasoned that he couldn"t take Brandon’s place as omega. Without him, who would look after the little ones? He couldn’t save his brother from Garrick, but he could keep the younger ones off the pervert’s radar.

  “Where do you think you’re going, boy?” Garrick rumbled. Bradley shrugged one skinny shoulder. The alpha already knew he didn’t want to participate in their hunting games. One large hand struck the side of his head with the speed of a rattlesnake. Bradley jerked to the side with the force of the blow. His teeth rattled and his head exploded behind his eyes. Keeping his eyes low, he stayed his ground. Not prey. Not prey, he whispered the words like a mantra in his ringing head. Garrick chuckled, sending an involuntary shiver down Bradley’s back. It was never a good thing when the alpha was amused. People got hurt in degrading ways. “I just realized that you’re still a virgin, boy.”

  Yep, and he planned to keep it that way as long as possible. Bradley’s sideshow experience with sex wasn’t pleasant. A lot of sweaty, nasty work to look like and sound like a sick moose, if you asked him. “Sir,” he said because Garrick expected it. The iron grip on his shoulder steered him back to the clearing where the others had the crying wounded woman staked out.

  Garrick pushed him forward. “Well, get to it boy.” Bradley shook his head. His gut churned. Closing his eyes he shook his head even harder. He wouldn’t do this. Bradley wouldn’t become the monster. Even when Garrick lost his temper and beat him until he could barely crawl to the dubious shelter of a thick grove of wild plums. He just couldn’t do it. Guilt mingled with the sharp pain from the plums. Covering his ears, he curled up on himself, swallowing the thick whimpers that lodged in his throat. The trees’ spines hurt a hell of a lot less than the woman’s screams.

  Bradley blinked, focusing back on the road. God, he"d been what? Twelve? The memory left him feeling hollow. He"d really like to visit his brother, but really didn"t want the inevitable fight that would follow. Besides, his brother"s mate, Karen, was preggers again and the two were alternately super sappy or super growly. They"d even moved to Packhome, making Bradley feel more the outsider in his cookie-cutter suburban house. Pulling into the drive-thru of an all night burger chain, he told himself to shut up. He wasn"t usually a whiner. The past was the past, and all that bullshit.

  Being the middle of the night, he picked up
his food in minutes. After setting the drinks in the cup holder, he tossed the bags in the passenger seat. Seven minutes later, he pulled into an alleyway and rolled past a dumpster. The bright headlights illuminated an older man in an ancient bundled into solid green fatigue jacket, sitting in a cheap lawn chair that faced the alley"s exit in the opposite direction. Turning and covering a face that looked somewhere in the late sixty or early seventy range, the man stood up. Bradley killed the lights and rolled down his window, admiring the human"s wary posture and quick footwork as he avoided tripping over the thermos at his feat. “Hungry, old man?”

  Doug McDonald eased around the truck, opening the door once he heard the locks click. “I ought to kick your ass for blinding me, boy.” He picked up one of the bags and tossed the other back to Bradley waiting hand. “I"ll forgive you this time, seeing as how you brought food.” The two ate in companionable silence that Bradley enjoyed. Silence, he had a lot of. The companionable kind, well not so much since he"d married Nicole, then sold his soul to the fairies to send her back to hell. He finished his third burger and shoved the trash into his bag. Eyes foreword, a soldier on duty, Doug sipped his soda. “It"s not your night,” commented the older man as if he knew more than he did.

  Bradley lifted one shoulder in a shrug, just a bit smug that it wasn"t so skinny anymore. He"d filled out over the years since his nightmare alpha"s death. What he couldn"t beat then, was no match for him now. “Thought an old man like you might need some backup.”

  Doug snorted again. “I was doing worse than this before you were potty trained, boy.” Douglas McDonald was right. He"d served in Vietnam. How many tours or what the older man had seen, Bradley had no idea. But he respected the man as much as he did his present alpha, Adam Weis. The two had the same hero quality that Bradley recognized. The type of man who did what needed to be done without needing the glory. Doug"s eyes never wavered from the women"s shelter across the street from the alley. “I"m strong enough to take on any wife beater scum that tries to bother those poor women tonight.”

  Bradley sat a little straighter in his seat. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the shelter. “Anything happen?”

  Doug shook his head. “Nah. Just a feeling.” The older man wasn"t a psychic, but his feelings and keen observations were often as good as a premonition from a true psychic. It was eerie, that trait in a normal human. But whatever Doug had experienced in his duty to his country, it had changed him irrevocably. He"d known what Bradley was the moment they shook hands that first night they"d bumped into each other while on the hunt for a different kind of predator. Those who made victims of the ones they should protect.

  Bradley slipped out of the truck. “I"ll take a look around.” A man skulking around would be suspicious in this neighborhood. That was why Doug tried to look the homeless

  part, even though Bradley had told him often enough that that the old man failed miserably. Doug looked exactly the retired military soldier he was. A hero looking for a cause.

  Between the dumpster and the tail of the truck, Bradley Changed. There wasn"t much room and he felt safe enough with Doug watching his back. Fur caressed his skin in an almost painful slide. He doubled over, falling to all fours as his arms, legs, hands and feet rearranged themselves. The push of his mouth to muzzle smarted, but didn"t really hurt. Besides, what rebirth wasn"t without a bit of pain? Bradley stretched, throwing a woof over his shoulder. “Yeah, you do that,” said Doug. The old man"s attention hadn"t strayed from the shelter once while Bradley did his thing. Bradley trotted out. Yeah, a man skulking around would be suspicious. A dog? Now that was commonplace.

  The old downtown buildings were the same as all the old downtown buildings in *this corner of the world. Brick, with high facings, that held some kind of design. Some were in excellent shape despite being nearly a sixty to a hundred or more years old. Others were hulled out. Brick boundaries to show where buildings once stood. The women"s shelter was a low building built in the seventies. Many of the windows were bricked over, making it more defensible. A plain steel door kept the world at bay from the fragile refugees inside. The mingled scents of the sad, dejected women and children who prayed for a better life lingered in the air around the shelter. Some of whom had gambled everything, even their lives, on this small bid for the freedom from their tormentors.

  Privately, Bradley admired the pathetic women hiding inside. At twelve, hell at sixteen, he hadn"t had the balls those women had. The scent of meat pulled his attention from the inhabitants of the shelter. He followed the scent to a different alley. One of Doug"s previous stake out points. The shelter wasn"t visible from here, but again, it was unwise to call attention to themselves. He followed his nose to a football sized roast, still cold from the cooler. The scent of almond made him wrinkle his nose and back up.

  “Someone doesn"t like „Bear",” Doug said as he materialized from the other alley entrance. Bear was the name given to him by the few children from the shelter that ventured outside. Suckered in by their sad eyes, he"d played fetch for them a few times. He"d also stood in the doorway, barring an irate husband or boyfriend from entering while they waited for the police to arrive. Bradley sneezed his answer and backed up again, glancing at his partner. “Yeah. Ain"t much we can do, but toss it in the dumpster later.” Doug started back to the shelter. Bradley leapt into action, passing the older man easily. “Showoff,” Doug mumbled as he passed by.

  Faint screams urged Bradley into a run. Smoke filtered into the air, then billowed the closer he got. He ran faster, skidding to a halt at the scene in front of him. The brick building looked safe enough, but gray white smoke came from the roof where more flammable materials were exposed. At the back of the building, the fire door was obstructed. The technical term filtered through Bradley"s brain. A consequence of escorting to many safety inspectors around his „adopted dad"s" job sites. He"d never allowed Adam Weis to formally claim him.

  Obstructed? Fuck that. He was a seven and a half foot monster with teeth and claws made to rip other monsters to shreds.

  Someone had barred the outswinging door with a couple of boards and some concrete screws. He could smell the brick dust and the lingering scent of a drill motor. A carpenter by trade, not a fireman, Bradley had no idea how far gone the fire was inside.

  Calling the Change to him, he shifted from full wolf form to the half-wolf dueling form that people recognized as werewolf. A swipe from one powerful clawed hand broke the top board free. The second board came free just as easily opening the door. Smoke seeped out of the doorway. Changing back to wolf faster than he"d ever been able to do before, Bradley slipped inside. He barked. His lunges burned as he tried to find his way by his ears. He barked again, listening.

  “Bear!” a small voice shouted. “Mommy! It"s Bear!” Bradley followed the little boy"s voice, using his head to knock open a door. He jerked to a stop as small hands burrowed into his fur and hung on for dear life. “Bear! Mommy won"t get up.” Fear and smoke tainted the child"s smell. Flicking his ears behind him, he could hear the other residents of the shelter running for the now open back door. He turned, intending to muscle the child into the way of the others. Someone should take him outside. “No. Bad dog!” the boy tugged on Bradley"s fur. A small hand slipped under the necklace turned collar around his neck and pulled. “Mommy"s this way. C"mon.”

  Bradley allowed himself to be led. He paused, listening, frowning when he heard a man"s bellow nearby. Possibly outside or at the shelter"s entrance. “Renee! You bitch! Come out with my son!” the boy inhaled a shocked breath and began coughing. “Jake! Boy, come out! It"s Daddy!” The boy huddled closer to Bradley and whimpered. Bradley shoved forward, grabbing the boy"s too large shirt with his teeth when he fell. He had no plans on letting a two bit abusive bastard have the boy or his mother. At the next doorway, the boy, Jake he assumed since the kid recognized the man"s voice.

  From what he could see, the room was like any other place that pretended happiness. Clean but run down. A cot with a col
orful blanket held a young woman in her twenties. Dark brown lashes lay like bruised petals against her pale pale skin. Jake ran to him mother, petting her with a child"s frantic need. She didn"t look like she weighed more than a dishrag soaking wet. The faint scent of fairy that clung to her explained the fairy tale quality of her appearance. She looked like a sleeping princess. Bradley huffed a breath, avoiding the kids eyes. Damn, but he didn"t want to traumatize the tyke anymore than he"d already been.

  “Renee! You faithless whore! Where are you? Where"s my son?” Bradley turned, the hackles on his neck raising as the barrel shaped figure stepped into the doorway. Outside he could hear the sirens and radios of the firemen and police. Inside he smelled the depraved sweat of the predator. “Jake?” The boy cringed back against his mother.

  Bradley stepped between them, growling. “Damn dog. Get back.” Looking back, and evil smile spread over the man"s face. He pulled a tire iron from behind him. “Help! There"s a dangerous dog in here! Help!” The man lunged at him. Bradley stood his ground. Then he Changed. Fast, practically ripping the fur from his pores. He shoved the wolf form away and jerked out the dueling form so fast that it must have been instantaneous for the stupid fuck that dared attack him.

  “Cool,” Jake breathed in awe behind him.

  “Son of a…” the man"s heartbeat sped up. The sticky smell of fear rolled off of him. “A demon.” Brandon laughed, a chuckle that flashed white predators smile. The man paled more as he took a half step back. “werewolf.”

  “Got it in two,” growled Bradley. He stepped forward, lazily swinging a claw tipped hand in the man"s direction. He had no qualms about dispatching scum like this, but not in front of the kid. Or the woman. The man screamed and found his balls. Raising

  the tire iron, he got a lucky hit in, glancing off of Bradley"s arm. Pissed now, he balled his fist and swung at the man"s head. not enough to kill, but the jerk did go flying into the wall. He slid down to the floor with a sick grunt.