Hard As Steele(19)

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Dash said irritably. “Obviously she’s lying about that. She’s human, she can’t have given birth to Steele’s child. Whoa, Steele – settle down! Not here!” At the suggestion that Roxanne was lying, Steele’s face had started to go hairy, and his fangs descended.

Steele swallowed his rage and quickly shifted back. He glanced around. Fortunately no humans were nearby.

“She’s not lying,” Steele growled at him. “And watch what you say about her, because I can kick your ass in human form just as easily as I can in wolf form.”

“Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on,” Isadora spit at Dash. “I was actually starting to like you.”

Steele turned and walked towards Roxanne, with Isadora following him. Dash hurried after them.

“I did what I had to do, and I would do it again,” Dash said angrily. “Wait – you were starting to like me? What the hell does that mean?”

Isadora’s only answer was an uplifted hand with the middle finger prominent. She didn’t bother to look back at him.

The humans and shifters were huddled around the picnic table, some sitting on the benches and some on the table. They were drinking coffee and scarfing down snack food.

Katherine looked up with alarm as they approached. “Dad,” she said urgently. “That’s the sheriff who Katherine went to see in Timber Valley. The one we shot with a tranquilizer gun.”

“You did what?” Roxanne asked her. “You shot him with a gun? What’s wrong with you?” She added in a low voice to Katherine “He’s actually pretty hot, don’t you think?”

“A tranquilizer gun,” Katherine said defensively. “You called me and said you were being held captive by a werewolf, and I didn’t know where to find silver bullets on short notice, or actually even on long notice, so I thought that a tranquilizer might work.”

Steele shot Katherine a look of contempt. Humans.

“Silver doesn’t affect us,” he informed her. “You’ve been watching too many horror movies.”

There were about a dozen people sitting around the picnic table or sitting cross-legged on the ground, and they all looked enough alike that they were clearly related – blond hair, Nordic looking, tall and lean with ice blue eyes – but only some of them were shifters. How was that possible?

A man who looked to be in his fifties walked up to Steele and held out his hand. “I am Sven Gund,” he said. “And you are like us. I can smell it. I thought we were the only ones in the world.”

“What is your pack?” Steele asked. “I’ve never heard of you.”

Sven looked surprised at that. “A pack, like real wolves? This is my family.”

“I see. I want to learn about your history, but first things first. Roxanne gave birth to our son in February, and she said she believes that he is being held in an underground facility. I desperately need your help in finding him.”

“I have a grandson missing too. His name is Axel, and he disappeared two years ago,” Sven said somberly. “From what Katherine tells us, Roxanne described a mine system to her, but the problem is, there are hundreds of possibilities. There are mountains nearby that are riddled with tunnels and shafts. We need to narrow it down before we stage a rescue attempt.”

“Wait, what? I had a son with the hot guy?” Roxanne’s head swiveled to look at Katherine for confirmation.

“Yes.”

“Go, me!” Roxanne held her hand up for a high five. Katherine gave her a weary smile, and high fived her. Then Roxanne looked around. “But where is he? My baby? I don’t remember what he looks like. I need to see him.” Her smile vanished, and she looked around anxiously, then stood up and scanned the area.

Katherine raised an eyebrow. “Roxanne. Did you hear the part where he’s being held in an underground facility?”

Roxanne’s face went pale. “Are you serious? We’ve got to go get him! Now!”

Katherine looked at her despairingly, then turned to Steele, glowering at him. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “She’s getting really bad. She literally forgets things every minute or so now. How can she function, how can she take care of her son even if you do find him? You people did this to her, damn it!”

Steele grimaced. Seeing Roxanne like this was like a punch to the gut. “One of our people screwed up. We have these people that we call Shamans, and we use them to erase people’s memory if they accidentally spot one of us changing to animal form, because we cannot risk exposure,” Steele said. “The man who messed up her memory was not someone that I chose. The man who could fix her will be back in town in…”Steele glanced at his watch. “Tomorrow morning. Less than twelve hours. That’s our best shot at fixing her memory and finding out where all these missing shifters are being held.”

Katherine looked at Sven. “Do you have anyone who can do that?” she asked him.

Sven shook his head regretfully. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. I wish we had someone like that. Right now, our families stay in the woods and hide from the modern world because of fear that we will be discovered.”

“It isn’t something that just anyone can do, and Roxanne is a special case,” Steele said. “Since her memory has been messed up, we can only trust the absolute best that we have to fix her. The man who is coming tomorrow morning is the best that we have.”

“I guess we have no choice, but you’re not taking her away with you,” Katherine said, putting her hand defensively on Roxanne’s shoulder.

Roxanne looked at Steele hopefully. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said.

He sat down next to her. “You and I are together,” he said. “When our Shaman comes back, you will remember me, I swear to God. And when you do, I hope you still want me. We will get our son back, and we will be together.”

He saw the way that Dash was looking at him – with contempt and anger. He couldn’t even blame Dash. Before he’d met Roxanne, if he’d heard of a shifter who wanted to marry a human, he would have been enraged.

“You can sit down,” one of the humans said to Dash, gesturing at an empty spot on the picnic bench.

Dash shook his head, standing stiffly. “No, thank you,” he said.

“I believe some acquaintances of mine are coming soon,” Steele said. “In the meantime, Mr. Gund, why don’t you tell me about your pack, I mean your family? Where do you live? How is it that you weren’t aware of other shifters?”

“We live near Lonesome Pines. Our family emigrated from Sweden. My ancestors came to Montana in the 1800s, to prospect for gold,” Sven said. “They had a farm deep in the woods, and several other families, who had also emigrated from Sweden, came to live with them as well. One day, so family history has it, our ancestors found a little girl wandering around by herself in the woods. She was so young she wasn’t even speaking yet. They took her in. When she grew up, she married one of the sons of the family. As far as we can figure out, she was the last surviving member of a family of werewolves who had been wiped out by hunters. She gave birth to fourteen children. About half of them were able to shift into wolf form at will, and so were their children. The families decided to keep it a secret for fear of having their children taken away from them by the government.”

He glanced at Roxanne. “Your father was a distant relative of ours.”

“You’re the Gunds, aren’t you? I think I remember my father telling me that.” Roxanne frowned, still looking bewildered.

“This is a first for our kind,” Steele said. “Humans and shifters have had sexual encounters, despite our best efforts to keep to our own kind, but we always thought it was impossible for such a union     to result in children. There has never, in recorded history going back a thousand years, been an instance of humans and shifters being able to have children together. Your family must be a special genetic strain that is able to successfully breed with wolves.”

Steele saw that Katherine and the blond shifter who’d shown up on his doorstep were standing next to each other.

“So, you two are together?” he said.

“Oh, no,” Katherine said hastily, and the young man moved away from her. “We’re just friends.” She glanced after him. The look on her face said that she’d like more. Maybe the young man didn’t share her interest, or maybe he felt that he couldn’t. It was hard to tell.

“Sir, with all due respect, you’re revealing too much about us,” Dash said, biting the words out. “The Wardens will not be pleased.”

“Dash. They’re shifters, the same as us,” Steele said. “We need to welcome them into our community and offer them protection, and the chance to meet others of their own kind.”

“How can that be, when half of them are human?” Dash shook his head.

Steele had to admit that it was a serious dilemma, but the Council of Elders were just going to have to figure it out. It wasn’t fair to leave these people hiding in the woods, isolated forever.

“You call yourself shifters,” Peter observed.