Chapter Four
Home Coming

Climbing up the stone steps I stopped at the enormous oak doors, engraved with an intricate Celtic knot pattern and looked at them for a few seconds in relief.  I took a deep breath and went in.  There was no need to knock and wait, it was like knocking at your own house.  Though I didn’t live here all the time it was like home to me.  To all the Pack in fact whether they were resident in the house full time or not.
The door closed behind me leaving me stood in the entrance hall, taking in the grandeur.  Even though I had been there countless times before over the years it was still a fascinating and amazing place; like some magnificent estate or something.  The entrance hall alone was as big as an ordinary house with doors to various other rooms.  Against the left and right walls two staircases swept upwards onto the first floor, meeting in the middle where they raised another few steps onto the balconied landing of the first floor.  Again doors led to corridors leading into various areas of the house.  The wood panelling on the walls and around the stairs added to the rich, elegant feel to the place whilst expensive paintings decorated the walls.  Not the creepy portrait paintings that these kind of houses have in movies, portraits of old owners and all that, but modern art and classic pieces from various centuries in the past; a collection worthy of any art gallery.  As I stood there dripping on the polished oak wood flooring, a door opened.
“Ohhh, who’s letting strays in?”  Came a deep, familiar voice.
“The pups come home.”  Said a second equally familiar voice from the same direction.
Looking over there was Ollie, the first voice, and Ryan walking towards me, both etched with amused grins on their faces, obviously having found themselves very entertaining.  In all honesty I couldn’t help but smile back.  After everything it was relieving to see familiar, welcoming faces and hear their stupid little jokes.  They walked right up to me so I had to look up at them, more so with Ryan who towers over most people at a staggering six-foot-five, then again Ollie is over six foot tall himself.
Ollie is a rugged guy, handsome I guess with a slim, toned frame.  He keeps his hair short and well groomed but despite this always seems to have a shadow of stubble over his jaw; personally I think he does this intentionally since it’s always there.  He looks to be in his mid-twenties but I know him to be over thirty; extended youth is a benefit of werewolves.  In all truth he’d probably still like around that age when he reached forty, lucky for me the ageing doesn’t stop until mid-twenties… to be stuck as a sixteen year old for half my life would suck.  To look at him most people think Ollie is going to be one of those laid back guys who doesn’t get much done but he’s actually a really smart guy, smarter than most people give him credit for – a Lawyer in fact.
On the other hand Ryan is not too bright.  Not unintelligent but just more prone to let things happen or let others handle stuff than try to think things through himself.  Where Ollie has brains Ryan prefers brawn.  As one of the larger werewolves in the Pack he can afford to rely on his brawn.  He has some kind of weird love affair with weights, started a year or two ago and he’s been working on gaining some perfect ‘V’ shape as he puts it, you know like broad shoulders but a slim stomach and waist.  He looks in his early twenties too and in fact is older than Ollie, he’d looked this age since me and Nate first came to Dawn Croft, which was over eight years ago.  I remember being scared out of my wits at this huge guy, I mean I was like waist height to him back then but he’s actually a pretty cool guy.  He helped a lot in the beginning, still does actually.  Again opposite to Ollie, Ryan keeps his dark brown hair longer to chin length in fact but he’s well shaved.  Vain at times, once you get past that he’s really a lot of fun.
“You – uh – look a little damp there Max.”  Ollie said as he messed my hair up, not that he made any difference really.  He flicked his hand to one side to get rid of the rainwater.
“Tell me about it.”  I replied, they both snorted a laugh.
“Hey, I thought you weren’t coming till next weekend?”  Ryan started.  “Does Nate know you’re here?”  As he finished his question I rather sheepishly shook my head, no.  “Oh I so gotta be there when he finds out.  He is gonna be pissed.”
“No Ryan I need to… Ryan!”  Before I could finish my sentence of protest Ryan had hoisted me up over his shoulder and set off marching towards what I knew to be the living room.  “Ryan put me… down.  I’m not a kid anymore Ryan!”
He slapped my backside, his way of telling me he wasn’t going to let me down so to just sit back and let it happen and in the supposed hierarchy I was expected to do as those above me wanted, a habit taken strongly from the wolf part of our genealogy.  Not that it always worked out that way.  That kind of thing may work for wolves but when you include human traits it’s not always easy to follow.
I settled for glaring at Ollie who followed behind Ryan and grinned in amusement.  Lashing out with one hand I tried to hit him round the head but he easily ducked out of my reach and just laughed at me.  That’s when I heard the thud as Ryan’s hand hit the door into the living room and pushed it open.  He wasted absolutely no time.
“Check it out guys, someone abandoned a cute little puppy on our doorstep.”  With that he dropped me over the back of the couch so that I fell on the cushions flat on my back.  “Can we keep him?”  He added with a little laugh.  As I straightened myself around and sat up I felt him pat my head so I snapped my teeth at his fingers more playfully than anything else – honest.  Though I can’t say what would have happened if he hadn’t moved his hand away so quick.
“Max, what the hell are you doing here?  I told you – not this weekend!”  I hadn’t even seen Nate yet but could already tell that he was mad from the tone in his voice.  My eyes shot across the room to where my brother sat in a leather armchair.  Supposedly we look a lot a like, obviously he looks older what with him being nine years my senior.  We both have the same untameable mess of hair, though his is dark brown and mine is blonde, supposedly his is like our mom’s whilst mine is like our dad’s.  He manages to keep his hair in some kind of style at least, though the way it flicked out around his neck and ears was a lot like mine.  Today he had a bit of stubble on his chin, strange for him since he normally shaved like every day and that’s when I noticed the dark rings around his eyes and the way he looked so tired.  Like he was worn out.
“Give him some slack Nate.  Poor kid missed his big brother.”  Lorna tried to defend me.  She’s one of only three female werewolves in the Pack.  Might seem odd, but werewolf Packs never contain many females.  Werewolves tend to take human ‘mates’ though it’s not like they mate for life very often.  Of course if you ask one of the girls they’ll tell you that it’s because Pack Alpha’s hate the thought that power might shift from the male half of the Pack.  Mostly this is just joking though sometimes it does make you wonder.  Her dark hair fell in waves over her shoulders and she shot me a reassuring smile.  She was really quite attractive.  I tried to return the smile but found myself drawn once again to the look on Nate’s face.  He really wasn’t happy.
“No way Lorna,he can’t just ignore me and do what he wants.   He shouldn’t be here... till next weekend.  It’s not safe for him to just traipse around on his own like that without anyone knowing.”
“And you think it’s safe at home!”  I’d yelled it before I thought about it.  Four sets of eyes stared at me questioningly but I did my best to stare back at Nate defiantly then I got up and marched out of the room and out into the hall.  As I reached the bottom of the stares I heard the door open and assumed Nate was following me so I ran upstairs and dashed down the central corridor where I eventually reached my room.
I entered and slammed the door behind me, leaned against it and allowed myself to slip down till I was sat on the floor, my head resting back on the door itself.  Everything in my room was as it had been left the last time I was there, though I had no doubt someone had vacuumed and dusted to keep the place clean.  Then again at that moment I didn’t really care about whether someone had been messing around in my room or not.  I had found the closest thing to a mother I had in a pool of blood.  I’d both been assaulted by and assaulted the men who had done it, maybe I’d even killed one and my own brother didn’t want me around.  I sat there on the floor and then I felt the tears well up in my eyes.
“Max… Max… I know you’re in there.”  Nate’s voice came through muffled from the other side of the door.  “I can hear you on the other side of the door.  Just let me in, I want to talk to you.”  He no longer sounded mad, more sorry now, sorry for how he’d spoken to me.  When I didn’t reply he continued.  “Max, c’mon let me in.  I’m not mad, really.  I’m just worried is all.  There’s stuff happening here that I didn’t want you involved in.  Are you okay?”
I heaved a heavy sigh, wiped the tears on the back of my sleeve and stood up before I opened my bedroom door and looked at Nate who stood there.  He wasn’t far off Ryan’s height so I had to look up but as I did he gave me a comforting smile but I could see the anxiety on his face.  He didn’t know what was upsetting me and he didn’t like that.  He never did.  If something upset me he wanted to sort it out.  As far as he was concerned I was his responsibility.
“I’m not mad Max.  You know that right?”
“It’s not that…”
His face became more concerned.  “Then what’s up squirt?”  When I didn’t reply Nate gulped down a lump in his throat that must have been the size of an apple.  “I was worried when no one was answering my call.  Is everything okay?  Max?  What’s wrong?”
By now he had entered my room and stood waiting for me to say something.  I closed the door and went over to sit on the end of my bed.  I took a deep breath to steady myself.  “Linda’s dead…” It was almost a whisper but the look on Nate’s face said he had heard me.  Werewolves can hear most things, particularly at such close range.
“What… what happened?”  The way he was looking at me, I’d say it was accusing as if he thought I’d been the one to kill Linda that is if I didn’t know Nate so well; that and if he didn’t know me so well too.
“I – I don’t know.  There were two men in the house when I got home…”
“Who?  What men?”  When I didn’t respond Nate leaned down towards me bringing his face almost level with mine and lifted my head with his thumb and index finger.  He looked me straight in the eyes; I could see a fiery glint in his eyes he was ready to hunt.  Not me, but whoever had attacked Linda.  If they could see that glint they’d be more scared than I’d been.  There’s nothing like an enraged werewolf to strike the living fear into someone.  “Who was it Max?”
“I – I don’t know.  They were just two men.  They had – guns.  Big guns.  And they were in the room with… Linda’s body.  There was so much blood…” I stared blankly at Nate as I spoke.
Nate swallowed a lump in his throat and looked away then his jaw set and when he turned back to me he scanned my entire body in a single glance, sniffing the air as he looked.  He was checking for blood, my blood.  He took my head in both hands and once again looked me straight in the eyes.  “Did they hurt you?”  His eyes flashed with that fiery rage again.  He had been ready to hunt for Linda’s killers, but he was ready to kill if someone had hurt me.
“No…”
“If they did I swear I’ll hunt ‘em down and tear off their arms!”  The violence may sound slightly odd, but then maybe not if you’ve ever had someone you love attacked.  I guess it is part of being a werewolf; it’s in our nature to take care of our Pack members, a combination of wolf habits and human emotion.  Strangely, the fact that he had said it made me feel better, weird right?  I suppose it just made me feel safer, secure.  A little smile crept across my face though there were still tears on my face.  I hadn’t been able to hold them back.
“They didn’t hurt me. Though I – I slipped on some blood and hurt my wrist.”  I hadn’t noticed at the time, probably pumped full of adrenaline or whatever but my wrist throbbed and the only explanation was from when I’d slipped.
“So you’re okay?  You sure?”
“I… think I might have… killed one of them.”
Nate sighed with relief, happy to know I wasn’t harmed.  He reached behind my head and pulled it into his chest into a hug.  After a few seconds he let me go and looked at me.  “Don’t worry about it Max.  If they killed Linda it was in self-defence.  You didn’t do anything wrong.”  He placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.  “You did the right thing coming here.  But why didn’t you call?  I’d have come and got you from the station.”
“When I slipped on… when I slipped I think I busted my cellphone.  It won’t even turn on.”
“You break everything.”  He joked.  Giving my shoulder another squeeze he let go.  “I gotta go catch Leon up on what happened.  I assume you didn’t stick around to tell anyone about what happened?  Cops or anything?”  I shook my head letting him know I hadn’t.  “Okay, we’ll have to give ‘em a call I guess.  Let ‘em know what happened.  You gonna be okay for a while?”  I nodded.  “Ok.  Get changed – before you catch your death.  And get some rest okay?  You’re looking a little beat.”
“I’d say the same about you.”
Nate grinned back.  “Tell me about it.”  With that he turned and went to leave my room.  As he reached for the door handle I called him.
“Nate.”  When he stopped and looked back questioningly I continued.  “What – uh – what’s going on?  What’s the crisis that makes it not safe for me to be here?”
He contemplated his answer for a few moments before replying.  “Get some rest.  I’ll tell you later on.”  He lingered another minute before leaving.  “I’m glad you’re okay squirt.  Don’t scare me like that again.  I’ll check in on you in a little while.  Ok?”  He waited just long enough for me to nod and then he left me alone, closing my bedroom door behind him.
I dropped back onto my bed, my feet still touching the floor over the side.  I could feel my clothes still heavy with water and so I climbed to my feet.  It felt so good to be in my own room.  Every Pack member had one at Dawn Croft.  Mine was situated beside Nate’s, at my over protective older brother’s request so I understood it.  I have clothes and everything there so that I don’t need to cart suitcases back and forth on my visits.  I pulled my jacket off and threw it over the back of the chair in the corner before stripping out of the rest of my drenched clothes, these I allowed to fall to floor and left them there until all I had left on was my fitted boxer shorts.  Climbing into bed it became apparent that I had been more drained by what had happened than I had thought.  It didn’t take long until I was asleep.