Chapter 51: 9

Gordon and Mackenzie stopped at the grocery store in Feral on their way to his place. He had been spending most of his time at her place in Aspen, so his fridge and pantry were likely empty. With the constant hanger, she would soon be in. They had to stock up. They walked up and down the aisles filling their cart. Mackenzie knew that the place was run by Aurora. And while she didn’t spend much time talking to the members of the pack, she knew the stories Gordon told her.

As they walked through the produce section, they ran into Katelyn and Darrell, who were also shopping. “Well, I was starting to think we would never see you again,” Darrell teased. “You been in Aspen a lot.”

“We will be spending more time in Feral from now on.”

“Oh,” Darrell said.

“Yes. Gordon thinks it’s a good idea,” Mackenzie said. “At least until we know what to expect with the pregnancy.”

“Who’s pregnancy?” Katelyn asked. Mackenzie placed her hand over her belly. “Are you pregnant?”

“A few weeks,” Mackenzie confessed.

Katelyn looked at Darrell. “You said we couldn’t have children.”

“Katelyn,” Darrell snapped. “Not now.”

“It’s ok. She knows,” Gordon told his young friend.

“You told her?” Darrell repeated.

“Well, since she is pregnant with my child, it seemed like she needed to know.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be an ass, but are you sure it’s yours?”

“Pretty damn sure,” Gordon said, nodding his head.

Darrell looked at Mackenzie, surprised. “How is this…? How…?” He looked at Gordon. “How?” Gordon shrugged. “I thought it was physically impossible.”

“So did I,” Gordon said. “Apparently not.”

Katelyn’s face lit up. “Do you know what this means?” She said, grabbing her husband’s arm. “We could have a family.”

“Let’s not go rushing into this. We have no idea what she is having. It could be some mutated freak of nature,” Mackenzie looked nervous. “Sorry, I don’t mean to freak you out,” he apologized to Mackenzie, then looked back at Katelyn. “There has never been a hybrid before. There is no telling what she is carrying. I think we should wait and see what Mackenzie has before we go jumping into starting a family.”

“I want to be pregnant too,” Katelyn snapped.

“Who’s pregnant?” Aurora asked, coming around the corner to restock.

“Mackenzie,” Katelyn told her.

Aurora looked confused. “You’re pregnant?” Mackenzie nodded, and Aurora looked at Gordon. “Is it yours?”

“Yes,” Darrell answered for him.

Aurora was stunned. “How is that possible?”

“That’s what I asked,” Darrell said.

“Does she know?” Aurora asked, eyeing Mackenzie.

“He told her,” Darrell said.

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“If I could get a moment to say something,” Gordon spoke up. “This baby, whatever it is, is one of us.”

“It is not one of us,” Aurora said. “We don’t know what that thing is.”

“Whatever it is, it is going to be part of this pack. Which means it deserves our protection, which means Mackenzie deserves our protection.”

“Why does Mackenzie deserve our protection?” A female voice startled them. They all turned to see Aster had just walked in and overheard the tail end of her father’s comment.

“Mackenzie is pregnant with Gordon’s baby,” Aurora told her. Gordon seriously wished everyone would clam up and stop telling everyone. By this rate, the whole pack would know by dinner.

Aster looked at Mackenzie and then at Gordon. “She’s joking, right?”

“No,” Gordon told his daughter.

“How is this possible?”

“I have no idea.”

Aster glared at her father. “You can’t have another baby at your age. Especially whatever the hell that bastard thing turns out to be. How could you be so irresponsible.”

“Aster…”

“Shut up!” She snapped at him. “I looked the other way when you threw Mom because I knew how bad things were with her hitting you.”

“Aster!” Gordon barked at his daughter.

“What? You haven’t told her that Mom used to beat the hell out of you on a regular basis? Afraid she will think less of you? I said nothing when you showed up at a wedding with a woman my age. I figured you would get it out of your system, but now you have some ungodly thing with this woman. I don’t know what she is carrying, but whatever is in her belly is an abomination.”

“Aster!” Gordon growled.

“I don’t get it, Dad, the humans weren’t killing our kind fast enough. You thought you would help them breed us out of existence?”

“Aster, you are out of line,” Gordon warned her.

“You’re just some dirty old man who sold out his own kind,” Aster turned and stormed out.

Her words wounded him. Mackenzie looked at Gordon. “I don’t think she likes me.”

“I can’t believe Aster would say such a thing,” Katelyn said.

“She is not wrong,” Aurora spoke, and everyone looked at her.

“How could you say that?” Katelyn asked. “Darrell and I would have a hybrid, too, if we have a family.”

“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”

“I thought we were friends?” Katelyn said.

“We are friends.”

“Only if I’m childless?”

“Look, Katelyn, I like you,” Aurora said, “but right is right, and wrong is wrong. That,” she said, pointing at Mackenzie’s bell, “is wrong. I bet you most of the pack would agree with us.”

“I can’t believe you said that,” Katelyn snapped and stormed out.

Aurora looked at Gordon. “I’m sorry, Gordon, but you know I’m right,” she turned and walked away while Darrell chased after his wife.

The worst part of all this was Gordon knew Aurora was right. There was a high likelihood that the rest of the pack would feel as Aster and Aurora did. They would consider his child a stain on the pack. A few weeks ago, he would have been among them. Still, this child was his, and as a father, he had to protect it, even against the pack.

They bought the rest of their food and left quickly. They drove to Gordon’s house, and he carried both of the brown paper bags to the door while Mackenzie took his keys to open the door. As they went inside, they both stopped short, and Mackenzie gasped, looking around at the living room and dining room, which were both empty. All the furniture was gone, and even the pictures on the walls were missing.

Gordon put the bags on the floor then proceeded to walk through his house. The kitchen was empty.

He ran up the stairs and checked the bedroom. The furniture was missing. All that was left was a blow-

up air mattress, one pillow, and a throw blanket. The dresser was gone, and his clothes were left in a heap on the floor. All that was left in the entire house was trash and nails in the walls where the pictures had once been.

“Fuck,” he growled.

“Oh, my God!” Gordon turned to see Mackenzie come into the room behind him. She looked as shocked as he was that his house was empty. “You’ve been robbed,” Gordon walked around the room, sniffing the air. He was picking up a few scents. One was definitely Melissa… Conrad… and two more… Hoss and Fred if he was correct. “What are you doing?” Mackenzie asked, watching him walk around, sniffing the air.

“I wasn’t robbed. My bitch ex-wife and three men I once called friends. Cleaned me out.”

“How do you know that?” She asked.

“I can smell them.”

“Did you just say you can smell them?”

“The scent is faint. They were here a day or two ago.”

“You know this because you can smell them?”

Gordon smiled at her. “I have a highly intuned sense of smell.”

“How?”

“I’m a wolf, remember.”

“What else can you do?”

“Way too much to get into right now,” he said, watching her walk to the window.

“Speaking of wolves, there is a massive white wolf in the driveway.”

Gordon came to the window and looked out at the wolf she was looking at. He recognized Melissa immediately in her wolf form. She looked up at him in the window, and then she growled and swiped the side of his car with her claws leaving deep scratch marks along the passenger side of his Camaro.

“Son of a bitch!” He snapped as he began to undress and leave the room.

“What are you doing,” Mackenzie asked, following him down the stairs picking up the clothes he shed.

“Why are you undressing?” Reaching the door, he shed his shorts and stepped out on the porch naked.

Melissa hopped up on the roof of his car and stood her grown.

In a fit of rage, Gordon let out a growling snarl as his eyes lit up, and he let the change take him. It only took seconds as his fangs descended, his face elongated into a snout, and his bones cracked as they reconfigured. He dropped down on all fours as black fur covered his body. Within a few seconds, a big black wolf stood where a man had been. Gordon bared her teeth and snarled.

Melissa snarled back and then took off into the woods, and Gordon followed. He got his paws on her.

He was going to show her he was not going to take her crap anymore.

***

Mackenzie stood in the doorway, her arms full of Gordon’s clothes. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes widened as she watched in amazement as Gordon transformed into a huge black wolf. The black wolf jumped off the porch and chased the white wolf into the woods, leaving Mackenzie alone and astonished. She could not believe what she had just seen. Gordon turned into a wolf. She had no idea he could do that. She had so many questions.

Not sure where they had gone or when he would be back, Mackenzie picked up the bags of groceries and took them to the kitchen. She put the food away and searched the drawers and cupboards for dishes and cooking supplies. There was so little left. She found a drawer in the kitchen with a flashlight and some emergency candles, and some matches. Holding the candles in one hand and the matches in the other, wondering what she could do with them.

Melissa was a vindictive bitch who had left Gordon with almost nothing. How was she going to make a meal with nothing to cook with. Mackenzie looked out the kitchen window and saw a barbeque on the deck. She assumed the only reason Melissa had left it was because it was built into the deck and unmovable. She looked at the food on the counter and then back out at the barbeque and smiled. She knew just what to do.

***

Gordon ran Melissa down. It was a hell of a chase. Melissa was a Luna and in great shape. She could easily outrun most, but Gordon was driven. He overtook her by the river. He used the trunk of an old tree to launch himself high enough to pounce her back, knocking her off her feet and sending them both tumbling down the bank and into the river. Hitting the cold water, they both snapped at one another as the two wolves wrestled in the water. She bit him in the leg, and Gordon swiped her across the snout with his front claws.

Melissa yelped and changed back into her human form. She stood in the water, her fingers claws as she barred her fangs at him in rage. Gordon turned back, hovering in the midst of the transition as he growled at her standing in the water not far from her. They were both naked, but unlike humans, Lycanthropes were not prudes. They were all comfortable in their skin, and nudity did not mean the same to them as it did with humans. Melissa lifted her hand to her face. Gordon had left deep bloody gashes in her cheek from when he swiped at her. It was a superficial wound. By morning it would be healed and not even leave a scar, just like the deep bite wound in his right thigh.

“You cleaned me out,” he snarled at her.

“You wanted the house; you got it. I only took my half.”

“You don’t even have a place to keep all that furniture.”

“Yeah, I was thinking of burning it all.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Are you that petty that you would rather burn it than let me have it?”

“Yes. I am.”

“You damaged my car.”

Melissa grinned. “Good luck getting insurance to pay for it. They don’t cover animal damage.”

“You think you are so clever.”

“What are you going to do about it? Nothing, that’s what. You won’t kill me. I have done nothing to warrant it. You won’t exile me because the pack would lose faith in you for banishing your ex just because you don’t get along. Face it, Gordon. I can do whatever I want, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

“You are testing my patience.”

“You shouldn’t have left your new girl alone. Word of the abomination she is carrying has spread through the pack, and people are pissed,” she laughed. “And you aren’t there to protect her,” the evil grin on Melissa’s face made Gordon nervous.

Shit!

This was a diversion.

Gordon turned and ran up the back. He changed back into his wolf form. He was faster on all four.