Dom

What a headache.

What an utter fucking headache.

I ran my fingers over my scalp, the closely shaved hair was beginning to get long again. Great, another annoyance to add to the pile. I snarled in frustration as I stood, rounding on the mess of wolves and the pile of warlock on the ground next to me.

"Pin Amelia down!" I snapped. "Our position is compromised, we need to keep moving and now we need to drag an unconscious human with us."

The rest of the pack looked at me, surprised.

"Why the human?"

"Because, Jack, she was bitten. Look at her arm, she's going to turn in the next couple full moons."

The wolves continued to pin a suffering Amelia on the ground but took turns looking over what they were doing at the human's bleeding forearm. Jerod was stifling pained laughter while he writhed on the ground in bursts of pain. I looked down at him, the thought of kicking his ass while he was down was tempting. But from what I had seen, he and Amelia couldn't be separated for now, so the warlock would have to stay whole.

I looked down at the human I had knocked out. She had short black hair and a stubborn chin that suggested she was going to be a handful when she woke up. Scratch that, she had already been a problem in the two minutes I had known her. Fantastic. Another damn problem on my plate.

"Dom," Aaron said, catching my attention. His buzz cut and stern brow were coated in sweat and grime, reminding me of the hellish night we had just endured.

"Yeah?" I asked, reaching down to take the human's phone and pepper spray. Not that it was going to do much to any of us.

"I can scout ahead for more trees, but I think we're still pretty deep in the human cities. What about a hotel for the night?" Aaron asked.

"You think we can hide these two writhing in pain as we haul their asses into a hotel room?" I jerked my head to the ground where Amelia was fighting and Jerod was dry heaving. "And who knows what this human will shriek when she wakes up. No, I'd rather find neutral wolf lands or at least some deep woods. There is plenty of national parkland northeast of here, we just have to get to it."

Aaron nodded his head sharply, accepting my answer and holding down Amelia's legs.

"We could have stayed with the fae," Jack grumbled.

I raised an eyebrow at him, and he looked away sheepishly.

"We're getting as far away from this mess as possible before the lunaria's dream wears off, and then we're riding out what comes in an established camp."

"I thought we were cured though," Carson said nervously. "That fae lady, she did something to us before we left, right?"

I shook my head. "She said she would do what she could about how bound our bodies were to the drug. We won't go through what we've been through before with the withdrawals, but we'll still feel something. And I don't want to be here when we do."

"So what do we do then?" Jack asked.

I sighed through my nose and looked down at Amelia. What do we do now? This was definitely an alpha's job, and I wasn't equipped to handle the mess we were in without her. But here we were, and Amelia was all but useless.

"Phone."

I looked down at my feet where Jerod was hunched over, trying to dig something out of his pocket.

"Your phone? Why?"

"Call a... ride," he answered. "Favor."

I reached down and pulled a black rectangle from his pocket. But the black rectangle wasn't just a sleek black smartphone, it was black because it was a melted wad of plastic and glass.

I dangled it in front of him so he could see. "Sorry, bud. It's fried from your little explosive exploits."

Jerod groaned and rolled face down.

I stood straight again, crossing my arms over my chest. What would Amelia do?

I looked down at the growling mass at my feet.

The better question would be what would the old Amelia do? The Amelia before getting us all hooked on lunaria's dream for a power trip. Amelia had always been aggressive, but the last decade was a whole new level of power trip in a desperate attempt to overcome her past. Our past. There was a reason we didn't have a proper pack anymore. But if it were up to me, we'd go back.

I blinked.

Amelia was out of commission for a while. Nine hours, according to the warlock. It was up to me.

"We're going home," I announced.

"Apollo's castle is just rubble, remember?" Jack said. "We can't go home."

"No, not there. Home. We're going home," I said simply.

The wolves perked up at that.

"Home?" Carson asked, excitement creeping into his voice. "Home-home?"

"Home-home." I nodded.

"Amelia isn't going to like this," Aaron said hesitantly.

"You heard her before, she was considering at least seeing how the pack was doing," I said.

"She probably meant she was willing to call Naomi," Aaron argued. "She's not going to like showing up in this state."

"It's going to take a lot longer to get to the village than nine hours. We'll head that way and see what she says when she snaps out of..." I looked down at her. "This."

"No!" Amelia snarled. "Don't you dare... Dom!"

I crouched down over Amelia, looking into her eyes as much as I could while she flailed about. "Just relax, we aren't getting far with you like this. I'll get us safely to the woods at least, and you can take over when you're yourself again."

Amelia growled and snapped at me, but I stood and stepped back. "Jack, Aaron, grab her. Carson, the warlock."

I looked down at the human on the ground with a sigh. I scooped her into my arms and took her with us. "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sorry."

Not that she could hear me.

"Where to?" Jack grunted, trying to keep a hold of Amelia.

I looked between all of us. We couldn't very well take Amelia around naked in the daylight. At least the rest of us had found a pair of shorts or something. If we had stuck around, I'm sure the fae would have tried to help, but they had more life-threatening situations on their hands than we did.

"Take the warlock's shirt and put it on her," I jerked my head to Amelia. "Then, we get a more discrete form of passage outside the city."

Carson took the shirt off of Jerod, tossing it to Aaron, who was barely able to get Amelia's arms through the sleeves without ripping them while she was fighting his grip.

"What method of transportation?" Carson asked. "We can't exactly take the bus like this.

"We're close enough to a road from this part of the park," I said. "We just need to secure a car or something. First, we move to the set of trees over that way where we can watch the road for an opportunity."

The wolves nodded, then we moved. There weren't many people in the arboretum yet today, and we were able to move with no incident. The rain and the disaster from last night helped. It kept the humans indoors until the scare wore off.

I scanned what I could see through the trees, but I was going to have to get closer if I wanted a clear picture. I could hear motors and cars, but I couldn't see them yet.

"Stay here, and watch the human." I set the woman down in the grass and strolled out of the trees like I belonged there. I even smiled and nodded at an unsuspecting couple taking a walk.

Nothing to see here, humans. Don't stray from the path.

Out of the gardens and through any barriers between the paths and the road, I was able to lean casually under a tree. Or I did until I realized I wasn't actually at a busy road.

"A golf course? Are you kidding me?" I muttered.

The cars I heard were motorized carts. Any noise was from chattering humans playing a leisure game on wide grass fields.

I grunted, annoyed. Or at least, I was until I spotted the main building for the golf course in the distance. Buildings meant cars. Cars I could take so we could leave the city.

With no shirt on, I didn't look like one of the golfers. But an easy fix was nearby as I crept up behind an unused cart, stealing the towel and sunglasses off the back of it. The old man in the driver's seat didn't even notice as he watched the others in his group whacking their balls into the distance.

Towel around my neck and sunglasses on, I strolled down the path like I belonged there. Not as any kind of customer, but perhaps a worker. I definitely earned a few frowns as I lowered my head, stepping out of the way of the well-dressed golfers and their carts as they passed. But there weren't many of those, and I made it to the building with ease.

A grin spread across my face as I spotted exactly what I wanted to take us in. A floral delivery van, the store logo was just one of those cheap magnets on the door. Easily taken off for our trip through Seattle.

I glanced in the driver's side window as I passed. The keys weren't in it, but that would have been too stupid. Even for a human.

"Oops, sorry!"

I looked up to see a fumbling young man at the front entrance of the club.

"It's... fine. Just go to the side service entrance next time. Didn't you see the signs?" A haughty woman was looking down her nose at the poor flower kid with what must have been a forty-pound arrangement in his arms that he was trying to see over.

"N-no, I didn't ma'am."

"Well, it's over there." She pointed. "Do try to remember that next time."

"I will," he answered.

Poor kid. The easily flustered type. Still, it would work to my advantage as I spotted the keychain in his back pocket, the plastic baseball logo dangling within easy reach.

I watched and followed. The kid did go where he was told, but slowly due to his armload. Easy pickings.

I pulled the sunglasses off and dropped them on the ground.

"Hey, kid. You dropped your sunglasses."

"Oh, I... did I?" He tried to turn around to see me. "I thought I left them in the van. Thanks, man!"

He sort of looked at them from over the flowers.

"Here, I got it," I said. I bent down, picked up the glasses, and put them in his back pocket. The switch was easy to make, and soon enough I had his keys.

"Thanks, man!"

"No problem. Have a nice day."

"You too."

And the kid was gone, around the corner to the service door.

I went straight for the van, took the magnetic logo off, tossing it in the back of the van as I slid into the driver's seat. There were a couple keys on the chain, but one was more obviously a vehicle key, and it started with ease.

I pulled out of the parking lot and sped off. I had to navigate around the golf course before I could figure out how to get back into Washington Park, but once I eventually did it was only a matter of getting the van as close to where I left the wolves in the arboretum as possible.

I rolled down the window, sticking my head out and using a combination of scents and sounds to try to locate them. When I heard Jack's trademark whining when he gets bored, I knew I had them.

I gave four sharp whistles, a signal they all knew well enough by now. Within minutes, Carson came forward with the human woman over one shoulder and half dragging a stumbling and struggling warlock with the other. Jack and Aaron had Amelia, and they all piled in the back.

I barely waited for the door to shut before peeling off the side of the road I had found and turned the van around.

The smashing of glass was distracting. I had a feeling I knew what it was, but I still had to ask.

"What was that?"

"Amelia broke some flowers," Jack answered.

"She broke the jar, dummy," Carson said. "Not the flowers."

"She broke the vase," Aaron growled.

"Are there more?" I asked. I hadn't really looked back there for other deliveries the kid was making.

"No, that was it," Jack answered.

"Shove the glass aside and keep Amelia from hurting herself. You know how she gets when she's drunk and pissed."

"She's not drunk," Carter said. "But... I guess it's about the same behavior."

I sighed, rubbing the headache at my temple with one hand. "Aaron, any sightings from humans while I was gone?"

"None," he answered. "The girl nearly came to, but we put her back out again."

I swerved a bit, causing an oncoming car to honk at us. "You hit her again?"

"Yeah, well..." He looked nervous when I glared at him in the rearview mirror. "She was waking up."

"She had better turn successfully," I muttered. "Otherwise, we probably gave a human head trauma before she died a slow and painful death by failed shifting."

"How long 'til we're out of Seattle?" Carson asked.

I grunted. I hated car rides, and this one was shaping up to be a bigger pain in the ass than normal. I didn't answer him, I just kept driving.

Out of Seattle, out of the surrounding human cities and towns. We were going east, and it was going to be a long trip.

Amelia thrashed. Jerod groaned. The human stayed unconscious.

And the pit of my stomach told me we were getting close to whatever wave of withdrawal we were going to have from the lunaria's dream.

Great. Another damn problem.