Fang
Chapter 17: A non-human home

This time I don’t open my eyes or try to move for a long while. If I do something is bound to go wrong I just know it. The human world is too big, too scary....

I simply listen to my surroundings there is none of the odd sounds and smells I heard the first time I woke in the Werewolf den. This place I am in smells more like home. I want to snap my eyes open and look for my pack a small part of me hoping that all I had seen and been through was just an odd dream but the silence in my mind and the absence of my packs smell crushes that hope. This is not home.

“Honestly uncle Ian what were you thinking?” It is the voice of the female pup who had greeted me. I listen intently focusing on her.

“Jane back off. I know how smart you are but honestly it’s not like we’ve had a situation like this before. What would you have had me do?” Ian is upset with her but at the same time I can sense a kind of prideful acceptance of her intellect from him.

“I would have thought you smart enough to get that you cannot dress a wolf in human clothes and set him loose in a death trap.” She is a feisty one. “I would have thought you would get that he is not human!”

Ian shy’s away from the thoughts he had shared with me about our discussion on what I was so quickly I don’t think she picks up on it.

“Imagine putting a wild animal in a house and closing the door for a minute.” She actually waits expecting him to do exactly as she demands.

And to my surprise he does. The image of a wolf or actually me in wolf form closed inside a human den plays in his mind. The wolf me looks confused and out of place but nothing bad happens until she intervenes. Suddenly Ian feels very ashamed as the wolf me keeps getting injured doing things with human objects. There is a window like that of the Jeep showing the woods outside the image of me jumps through it but the window breaks and small sharp pieces like teeth fall on me biting into my skin. The image is so real that I can almost feel it happening. Then another of me walking past a white thing she thinks of as stove. Without noticing my image walks past it rubbing against it. A small part of it turns and I don’t understand what happens but the image of me becomes light headed and falls down what she thinks of as stairs breaking many bones.

I don’t like these thoughts. I understand that she is trying to make Ian see I need to be shown what things does before being closed inside a human denbut I hadn’t known human dens where this dangerous and I don’t like the way she is making Ian feel.

I open my eyes and to my surprise I’m in a den much like the one I grew up in. It is big and warm and has only a few human things stacked against a wall. I smell only the female pup’s sent around me. It must be her den which in itself would be strange but I have heard of lone wolfs before it might be that she is like one of them part of a pack but preferring her own space.

This thought for some strange reason seems right to me then I realize she is there in my mind confirming my thoughts of her.“Be quite, shield yourself.” She whispers and I do as she asks for some reason without question. If not an Alpha herself she must be at least equal to one considering the way her mind works.

She continues sending Ian images of me until to my surprise Michael’s voice echoes in the den. “Enough, young one. As usual you are right in this. What do you suggest?”

Smugly but respectfully she answers. “Leave him in my care. I will show him and teach him and here he will not be able to get into any trouble.” She already sees this idea of hers as accepted though I don’t feel acceptance from Michael.

“He is my grandson and I will teach him.” The voice of the nice female with the leaking eyes interrupts. She is not close but I can see she is expecting Michael to bring me back to the big Werewolf den.

Michael is torn in this decision. He sees the wisdom of the pup but the female I understand now is his mate and her opinion weighs heavily on him.

“You are always welcome here. It is not far and you know I’m right about this.” The pup puts in.

There is a long pause of silence and I feel both Ian and Michael approaching me. I don’t think he means to but Ian thinks on what happened earlier. I am horrified to see the mess I caused.

When I jumped back into Ian when he thought about germs I had actually hit him hard enough to knock him out. He came to and found me bleeding badly on the bathroom floor with the toilet in pieces lying all over. Jane was there in human form pocking my shoulder with a small sharp tooth shaking her head and her finger at Michael from time to time. After she had somehow stopped the bleeding and with a lot of arguing from the nice female saying that it would be best for me to wake up in a more familiar surrounding she had Ian pick me up and bring me here.

“Fine but this is not permanent.” Michaels mate finally agrees. The pup is smug and Michael and Ian both feel relieved.

“He has a bag up at the main house.” Ian says turning to go and retrieve it but the pup says she has other things to get as well and bounds out of the den.

“Are you awake Jessie?” Ian asks laying down in front of me nose to nose.

“You can see and hear he is not.” Michael says laying down next to him.

When I open my eyes and look into theirs Michael is surprised. I whine softly seeking his understanding and forgiveness for causing so much trouble.

“Chill.” He smiles. The word Ian chose to teach me in the human language is amusing to Michael. “You need not ask our forgiveness Jessie it is us that must ask for yours. We blundered in bringing you here like this. Perhaps your DenMother was right you are still very young. We have been treating you as a human boy in wolf form when you are as Jane pointed out and has never been a mere human boy.”

I move forward touching my nose to his not in understanding but in acceptance this is as strange to me as it is to them I now realize.

“Jane is a good child and she will do well by you. From now until you are more familiar with the human world you will be in her care.” I frown at this, it is not an unpleasant thought but I do not want to be away from Ian and Michael. “The human world is very different from the simple way you were raised. I still don’t understand why my daughter took you to the wolf pack first. But I am grateful that you learned loyalty, trust and structure from them albeit on a basic level.They taught you in a way that is very different from how we learn here. Now though is the time to continue your training. There is much to this world. There are so many things that can and will hurt you. We want to help you, we want to teach you and I want you to be a part of my back always. You understand that don’t you?” I nod too woozy to truly make sense of everything he means.

“Don’t worry Jessie we won’t be far.” Ian reassures me. He shows me a very big human den, it is the one in which I had woken up earlier then he shows me around the big den are many smaller dens. I understand this is the Werewolf Compound and he considers this Michaels den. I had seen images of it in their thoughts on our way here. He then shows me the mountain within a day’s walk of the Compound. There is a human den between it and Michael’s, Ian sees this smaller den as his. At the base of the mountain near a clear stream there is an entrance to a cave this is where we are now.

“She can be very stubborn but I think with her past in mind she might be the best person to help you assimilate into the human world. When Jane was given to us by the Tribunal she could not stand to be around others. Michael had to build her this den so that she could have her own space.” Ian tries to explain hoping I would agree to stay here for now.

“She is very small for such a big space.” I offer.

Ian smiles glad I am willing to try it their way. He was actually worried I would run away back to the pack but I would not shame my pack by doing something like that.

“It is.” Ian agrees with a smile.

“I was hoping that in time she would accept others close to her and share the space.” Michael explains.

“She is not part of the pack?” I don’t understand how the Tribunal can give someone to a pack.

“It is hard to explain but Jane is adopted. She is every bit as much a part of this pack as anyone but she was not born into the pack. When she was small she was found roaming around on her own abandoned or separated so we think from her own pack. She refuses to talk about that time of her life so we are not sure. A lone wolf found her and brought her to the Tribunal and after a period with them they gave her to us to adopt knowing our daughter was missing and thinking we might accept her as a replacement.”

A replacement for my mother. I am outraged by the idea. You can never replace one member of the pack with another.

“We feel the same but the members of the Tribunal are not all Werewolf’s or human for that matter. We took her not to replace your mother but to give her a home and help her. It has taken a long time for her to accept the pack as family of sorts and I think this might be as good for her as it will be for you.” Michael isn’t sure if this will be good for his mate but hope that she too will give this arrangement a fair try.

I don’t understand most of it but I am saddened by Jane’s past and willing to help her as she is so obviously willing to help me as well.

Michael makes a big fuss over the sparseness of ‘furniture’ in the den another human feature used in their ‘homes’. Ian points out that I would not know what to do with furniture even if the den was full of it but Michael insists on at least bringing a table chairs and cupboards for us to use.

The images of furniture he plays when he thinks of each piece is fascinating and I recognize some from my short time in his den but I honestly don’t care much for any of it until I pick up from Ian that making the furniture himself is something Michael takes pride in and helps him calm. For these reasons alone I eagerly agree that furniture in the den would be a good idea.

I hope that Jane won’t be too mad at having her den cluttered with stuff but I don’t want to go against Michael’s wishes either.

“Grandfather.” Ian nudges.

And I realize that I am thinking out loud. The loss of blood and the strain of the unknown is taking its toll on me. Expecting me to keep a shield up so that I won’t upset anyone on top of everything else is too much to expect and I wine at Ian.

He sympathizes as we watch Michael . . . Grandfather walking around the den talking to himself. I will do my best to remember to call him by the honorific if that is what Ian insists on.