3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

F ury

As I slide into the backseat of a Suburban filled with humans, I'm already pissed off. The stench of their fear and dislike doesn't improve my mood. At least they have the good sense to shut the fuck up as we make our way to the helicopter pad.

When I climb into the helo, two dog handlers are already on board, as are four dogs. I wait, letting all the humans grab seats before I board, then stop near the dogs, letting them get a good whiff of me.

They know I'm not human, and an alpha is already in an aggressive stance before I'm within five feet of him. Just to get everything straight, I stop, pierce each of them in turn with my most feral stare, then bare my fangs and growl.

Although we're on a tight timetable, and the big bird's rotors are already whirling, I wait until all four of them are on their backs, exposing their bellies to me in submission. It's only then that I pat each of their heads and move to take a seat.

Even though no human on this helicopter missed my little alpha display, I double down by walking to the seat that spans the entire back wall. It's more like a couch than four divided bucket seats.

Two men are sitting there, but I simply stand in the aisle, staring them down with narrowed eyes and flared nostrils until they say, " excuse me," and hurry to sit elsewhere. As I stow my pack under the seat and lie down, I can't control the surge of satisfaction flying through me.

It's little payback for the thousands of insults, both small and large, I've suffered at humans' hands. Still, it feels damn good to have cowed every canine and human on this transport.

"I'm Captain Marks." The words come through the headphones they handed me when we boarded. "Let me get you all up to speed."

He reviews a list of information that was forwarded to all of our email accounts. As he drones on about intel I reviewed in the Suburban, I watch my fellow rescuers who are all sitting angled in their seats so they can keep one eye on me.

Maybe I have some psychopathic traits because I can't help but enjoy that I've struck fear in their hearts. Goddess knows the tables were turned when I was spit onto the sands of the Mojave Desert years ago and then abused by the U.S. Army.

When the briefing is over, even over the whoop-whoop of the rotors and through the muffling effect of my headphones, my wolven hearing allows me to listen as they talk in their little groups.

"No wonder they keep the Others behind barbed wire fences after all these years," says a woman near the front. By her uniform, it looks like she's National Guard. "He's feral. Did you see? He acted more like an animal than the animals."

"He's a wolven," her seatmate responds. "He doesn't just have fangs, like you saw—"

"How could I miss them?"

"He's got a bushy tail hidden somewhere, wolf ears under his coat hood, and god knows what goes on in that primitive brain of his."

"Glad I've got a gun. "

They let her carry a gun? All I've got is a hunting knife, and I doubt they would have let me on board if they'd known it was hidden in my boot.

"Why would they ask him on this mission?" This question is from a red-haired guy across the aisle from her.

He's more timid than the most beta of the dogs on board. He keeps side-eyeing me, checking me out—obvious even as he tries to be stealthy.

"The Others are more animal than human. I think they asked him because their sense of smell is ten times better than ours."

I listen absently as I memorize the topo map they forwarded to my email. When we land, I don't want to waste a moment checking the map. I'm going to hit the ground running. Even though this woman—a scientist , no less—is human, she still needs to be rescued, and from what I've seen, none of these jackasses could find her in their own backyard on a sunny day.