Embraced By The Pack

"Double the cheese, triple the meat, and throw in some more of those little yellow goodies." The guy tapped his finger against the glass separating him from the line of sandwich ingredients.

The build-your-own sandwich shop I worked at was unusually busy for a Tuesday evening just before closing time. All of my classes at the nearby college were Monday/Wednesday/Friday though, so it wasn't like I had anywhere to be.

"Are you talking about the banana peppers?" I checked.

Little yellow goodies? Where did he come up with that?

They looked more green than yellow, and the sign on the glass clearly stated their name.

"The pepperoncini." The guy's friend tapped the glass where the first had tapped.

"Those are banana peppers," I added more to the sandwich before sliding down the counter and adding the ridiculous amount of mayo, oils, vinegar, and seasoning the guy wanted.

I was in the zone, barely looking away from my sandwiches long enough to call out to the rest of the customers that I'd be with them shortly.

"We'll all be paying together." A guy a little way down the line called out.

Well, that would make things easier... but also harder.

I finally looked around the sandwich shop, and my eyebrows shot upward.

Holy... had the college's entire football team come in for sandwiches or something?

The room was full of unusually tall, muscular, and attractive men. We were supposed to be closing in ten minutes, but there were at least a dozen of the guys maybe more.

"Great." I forced a smile, tapping the buttons on the checkout screen a bit harder than I needed to.

I'd never much liked the gorgeous, muscular, popular type. Nerdy, sweet guys? They were my jam. The less ego, the better. If I ever settled down, I wanted a guy who was nice to talk to, not just look at.

I put the first guy's order in, then went back to the beginning and started his friend's sandwich.

Double cheese, triple meat.

The pattern continued with little variety as closing time passed and I continued working through the last few sandwiches. I was reaching for yet another slice of our thickest, cheesiest bread when the last guy said,

"Veggie sandwich on flatbread."

I glanced up, surprised. The other guys hooted and cackled, tossing jokes.

"Just kidding." Veggie Guy wore a big grin. He was yet another tall, gorgeous dude who undoubtedly spent way too many hours at the gym to have many brain cells at all.

When our eyes collided, his changed going from a dark green color to red.

I dropped the cheesy bread, scrambling backward.

The laughter died down as Veggie Guy's lips parted, and something that sounded like an animal's snarl met my ears.

"Aw, shit," one of the other guys muttered.

Veggie Guy's hand landed on the top of the glass separating us. I took a step back. When he began to move, I knew I had to go too.

I took off into the back area. There was a break room, a fridge, and a door out. I was not prepared for an emergency, so I booked it straight through the back door. I didn't have a car couldn't afford the vehicle, or insurance for it so I rushed in the direction of my dorm room.

Only a few steps down the sidewalk, a hand caught my bicep, spinning me around. I crashed into Veggie Guy and found his eyes still glowing red.

The rest of the guys caught us almost as fast. Without the glass between them and me, they looked even bigger.

"Let go of me or I'm calling the cops," I threatened, trying to look larger than I was.

Red-eyed Veggie Guy growled, low and deep. Like an animal. It sounded like he was trying to say date.

Wait, no. He was trying to say, mate.

Mate? Wasn't that a British or Australian word for friend?

I wasn't as up-to-date on slang from across the world as I should've been.

Suddenly, he released my arm, jerking backward and bending in half with a sharp snapping sound and a pained yell-howl. I tried to jump away from him, but my back slammed into the chest of another man.

"Grab Jesse and the girl. We need to move," the guy now holding onto me barked.

My shocked brain processed too slowly.

He threw me over his shoulder, jogging all eight steps back to the parking lot and the lone big white kidnapper van parked outside the sandwich shop. I shouted for help as I fought to get free, but it was eleven at night and no one except the not-football team was around.

The guy opened the door with one hand before he set me on the middle seat, then buckled me in and turned to help the other guys. I unclicked the buckle and lunged toward the door.

The guy caught me around the waist and dragged me back, buckling the belt again and holding it in place.

"You don't want to run right now," he warned like he was on my side.

"Like hell, I don't!" I ripped against the seatbelt, but he wasn't fazed and it didn't budge.

Animalistic groans, growls, and whines came from the back seat. I shuddered at the sound of cracking bones. My entire focus was on escaping, so I didn't look backward didn't want to look backward.

"Drive," another guy commanded.

Someone hit the gas, and I slammed into the seatbelt hard enough to be glad I was wearing it as the van ripped around a corner.

A savage snarl met my ears, and I finally stopped fighting long enough to whirl around.

And what I saw made me want to vomit.

Veggie Guy Mate Guy was half human, half...animal?

Gray fur sprouted from his oddly-shaped limbs, those freaky red eyes staring at me as his body bent and contorted in another painful-sounding snap.

My voice shook as I asked, "What the hell are you?"

The guy holding the seatbelt answered with a grimace, "Werewolves."

"Why did you take me?"My heart pounded, watching the guy in the back with laser focus as his body continued to change. The van was still flying down the road, but a car crash was the least of my worries considering I'd been taken by werewolves.

I'd have loved to deny it, but I heard the animal growl in Veggie Guy's voice when he grabbed me. And now, I was watching him turn slowly and painfully from animal to human.

"You're his mate. When a wolf finds his mate, he goes wolf and hunts until she's his," Seatbelt Guy explained quickly. "Staying with him will buy you more time."

That second part was kidnapper bullshit, for sure.

"Why would staying with a 'hunting' werewolf ever buy me more time?"

"Because he's going to be stuck in his wolf form until he's either changed you into one of us or killed you. You're the she-wolf he wants, and he won't back down until you're his. He'll try to get you to offer yourself first, to ask him to change you but there's no telling how long he'll wait, and then he's going to bite you. Werewolf venom changes the strong and kills the weak."

Well, if it killed the weak, I was in trouble. I hadn't exercised in months.

Wait, no.

It had been an entire year.

The last time I'd attempted to visit the gym was the day before classes started my freshman year, and I was currently a few weeks into my sophomore year.

"Staying with him will prolong his hunting, giving me more time before he starts biting?" I checked, still 100% planning on running as soon as I had the chance.

"Yes. It will make him feel like he's winning," Seatbelt Guy confirmed.

The van took another turn, harder and faster. My head smashed into the window, and a savage snarl broke out from Veggie Guy, who now looked almost entirely like Veggie Wolf.

"Shit! Sorry." Seatbelt Guy held a hand out toward the wolf in the back of the van. "Trying to keep her safe and get her away from the humans isn't easy, Jesse."

Veggie Wolf twisted his already-freaky face and made a menacing sound.

"We'll be back soon," another guy in the back with Jesse (AKA Mate-Guy-slash-Veggie-Wolf) snapped at him.

But being back soon was good.

It was good for me at least, because it meant that their place wasn't insanely far from mine. Which gave me at least a tiny sliver of a chance at escape.

The van turned sharply, and I slammed against the seatbelt hard enough to bruise my chest. The sudden pain made me scream. My honey-colored ponytail smacked me and Seatbelt Guy in the face as the van's tires squealed, and the floor started to sort of vibrate beneath us.

Crap. We were on a dirt road.

That was not a good thing as far as my chance of escape went. Dirt roads and I were not well acquainted.

Hell, nature and I wasn't well acquainted.

"Faster!" someone behind me yelled.

Faster? Were they completely out of their minds?

"She's got to stop screaming or he's going to kill one of us," another guy snarled from somewhere in the van.

I screamed again, this time in hopes that he really would kill someone to give me a chance to get the hell away from them.

"Brakes, now," another guy barked.

The driver slammed on the brakes, no question asked. The van squealed and swerved as it skidded to a stop. There were five other guys in there with me six if you counted Jesse's newly-furry ass so half the group must've stayed at the sandwich shop.

All five of the non-furries bailed the second the van stopped. The doors opened and closed in record time, leaving me trapped with a wolf.

I shoved on the seatbelt, pressing and pulling and tugging, but the damn thing was stuck.

A hairy monster jumped over the seat, landing beside me on the bench. I opened my mouth to scream again.

Before I got the sound out, the monster okay, maybe it was a wolf shoved his head toward mine and legitimately climbed on my lap.

"You're not a dog," I yelled at it.

It licked my face.

"Not a dog," I repeated, my voice faltering a little.

It barked.

"Not a... What am I doing? I'm losing my damn mind. Get off me!" I shoved his furry body. I'd expected a werewolf to be gigantic, but he wasn't. He was only a little bigger than my mom's German Shephard, Gallifrey.

I wiggled and jiggled the seatbelt while the wolf watched me.

When I decided that wasn't going to work, I huffed and leaned back against the seat I'd been trapped in.

The wolf gave me a look, almost like it was asking, "Are you done?"

I gestured toward the seatbelt, still scared out of my mind but growing angrier by the minute. "Don't just sit there, dammit. Help me!"

The wolf slashed his claws at the seatbelt. They sliced right through, and the seatbelt flew up toward the spinning mechanism.

The claw slash reminded me of what the guy had said about the wolf.

He was hunting me, and wouldn't stop until he'd bitten me.

And changed me into one of them.

"Stay back," I warned, scooting out of the seat and toward the door.

The wolf surprised me by listening.

Moving at snail speed, I slowly lifted my hand behind me, to the door's handle. When he made no move to attack, I pulled. The door clicked as it opened, and my body tensed, waiting for him to make a move.

He didn't.

The wolf just sat there, watching.

"I am so confused," I mumbled.

But when he still didn't attack me, I slowly opened the door.

"No sudden movements," I said softly, partly to myself and partly to the wolf, because it seemed like he was listening to me. If he was, I would take advantage of it.

I lowered one foot out of the door, poking around with the toe of my old red Converse until my foot met the dirt.

The wolf stayed where he was, watching me silently.

I slowly straightened, my hands landing on the faded fabric of the seat as I carefully lowered my second foot to the dirt.

"What's she doing?" someone whispered. One of the non-furry guys from the van, I assumed.

"I think she's trying to escape," another said, with some amusement.

"He hasn't tried to stop her yet," a third pointed out.

"He doesn't want her scared of him," a fourth responded.

Dammit, if they kept talking, all the football-player-shaped werewolves were going to be the death of me.

I took a step backward, then paused.

The wolf didn't budge.

Another step.

Pause.

No movement from Veggie Wolf.

I continued to move away from the van step by step, never taking my eyes off him.

Though I wasn't sure exactly which direction my dorm was, we hadn't gone far on the dirt road when the guys pulled the van over. If I ran beside it, I hoped I could get back to the real road and possibly make my way back into town.

And from there, get home.

My tiny dorm room sounded like heaven.

Right when I started to think the wolf was going to let me go, he jumped out of the van in one smooth, powerful movement.

Another scream welled in my throat.

Instead of letting it free, I sprinted down the dirt road.

The wolf caught me in less than three seconds, but he didn't tackle me or anything. He simply ran beside me.

It was so dark that I had a hard time staying on the road. But the sides of the road were sort of raised, so as long as I stuck to one of the raised edges, I knew I could make it.

I didn't stop. It was dark, so I could barely see a thing. My lungs burned, sweat poured off me, and I panted like I was the wild animal instead of him as we ran.

The wolf was nearly silent, remaining steadily beside me even as my jogging slowed to walking. My legs shook like Jell-O as I wheezed, trying hard to keep going.

When I couldn't go any further, I plopped my hands onto my knees and bent over, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. I was only wearing a sandwich shop t-shirt and a pair of high-waisted cotton shorts with my Converse, so I wasn't exactly dressed for exercise.

"Damn...you...wolf..." I wheezed.

He licked the back of my knee.

I let out a truly hideous screech, kicking and flailing at him. He easily sidestepped my half-hearted attempts to wound him, so I turned to threats instead. "Don't lick me if you want to survive."

I paused, gulping down air.

When I could breathe, I added, "I am not one of those people who touches every dog they see. Your germs are not welcome on this body." I gestured to all of me.

He gave a pathetic whine.

"I don't care what you think I am to you, werewolf. I know you were Veggie Guy, and I am not amused by any of this. I'm going home." I wiggled my finger at him like a crazy person. "So just sit there while I catch my breath, or go back to wherever the hell you and the rest of your not-football team came from."

The wolf snorted, but he sat.

I bent back over, hands on my knees once again. I was still traveling alongside the dirt road, and though it felt like I'd been running forever, I would've walked for an entire week if it meant getting away from the werewolves and back to my dorm.

But it wasn't going to take an entire week. The paved road couldn't have been much further.

"Alright, Tea. You've got this. Just a little further, and you're home free," I lied to myself as I started jogging down the road again. The wolf made a weird sound, and I glanced at him. "What are you laughing at?"

He didn't answer.

Because he was a wolf.

Although, cartoon-style talking animals wouldn't be that crazy compared to what I'd just discovered existed.

"You are truly infuriating," I told him, shaking my head as I kept running. "I'm not going to be what you want. Your mate or whatever. That's not me. I've got dreams, goals, and plans. I'm not going to be the housewife who sits at home and pops out a baby every year. I have school, and I have stuff to do, and things to accomplish. So just walk away. Go home." My voice raised as my rant continued.

The wolf ignored my lecture, his gaze on the forest in front of me.

I huffed but kept running. It wasn't like I had another option. The kidnappers and their van were way behind me, and probably heading in the opposite direction. After all, I was going back to my college town, and they'd been driving down the dirt road toward wherever they'd planned to take me.

Though it was suspicious that they hadn't come after me.

Were they just going to leave me with the wolf?

According to them, he was hunting me. And that was terrifying.

But shouldn't hunting be more violent than just running with me and refusing to leave?

I didn't know. And without the rest of the kidnappers, I had no one to ask.

Glancing at the wolf, it occurred to me that he hadn't had anything to do with the abduction. I mean, he'd been there, but he wasn't one of the guys who grabbed me. Jesse had started going wolf after meeting me, and the other guys grabbed us both.

He had been with them, though. So he wasn't innocent, and I couldn't trust him.

Especially while he was furry.

A furry werewolf.

Dammit, that was a lot to wrap my head around.

I wheezed at him as we jogged (well, as I jogged and he trotted), "You should choose someone else to be your mate. You and your kidnapper buddies are not my kind of guy, and I'm far from the easy, party-loving, sorority girl that guys like you are into."

My honey-blonde ponytail swayed behind me, reminding me why people sometimes assumed I was something other than the book-smart nerd I was.

The wolf ignored me again.

Tired of being ignored, I shut my mouth and just kept on running. I was slow, but still moving.

It felt like an eternity later when I heard a car's engine behind me.

Cursing, I practically threw myself into a bush off to the side of the dirt road. Branches cut me and scratched me, but if it was Jesse's friends, I couldn't afford to get caught.

Jesse or the wolf that had once been Jesse crouched beside me, his body hidden by the bush even though he wasn't inside the damn thing like I was.

Sure enough, the kidnapper's van passed us. They didn't even slow down.

When they were gone, the forest seemed even darker than it had before.

"I'm going to die out here," I mumbled to myself, as I slowly extricated my body from the bush. The wolf was licking me again, running his tongue over my cuts and scrapes. "Stop it, dammit. I don't know you." I shoved at his face.

He growled.

"Go find your wolfy friends and leave me to escape on my own." I tried to shoo him away. He barely budged. "Damn you." I sighed, then started walking down the dirt road.

I walked and walked, and walked. By the time the sun was rising, I was still walking.

When I finally saw a flicker of light ahead of me, I let out a whoop of excitement and picked up my pace.

Abduction averted.

It wasn't until I reached the edge of town that I realized I'd celebrated too soon.