Running with Wolves

My deepest apologies for the late update. Future updates may take longer than previous chapters but I am still fully engaged in my story and have every intention of finishing my story. Thank you all for the comments, votes, and feedback. We almost had a 4.9 :D. Please keep up the support and letting me know what you think of the story so far. I hope everyone enjoys this new instalment of RwW.

As always a huge thanks to my two editors MarieFlower and markrane for the great job they have done on cleaning up the chapter.

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Dominic could feel himself waking up before he actually did. It was slow, almost dream like as he moved his body into a more comfortable position and tried to ignore the pull of consciousness.

"Dominic?" The voice was low, hesitant. He tried to ignore it but once his brain began to wake up there was no stopping it. Soon he was opening his eyes and fully awake, wishing with everything he had that he could just go back to sleep. He looked around to see his familiar bedroom, Samantha sitting next to him on the bed.

"Guys." She was with all three of the others. They all turned their attention to her, then Dominic as they realized he was awake.

"Hey, Dom, how are you?" Garrett struggled to get up from his chair and leaned in closer to get a better look at him. He was probably trying to check his complexion and pupil response. "What happened out there?"

Dominic tried to answer his question, but when he opened his mouth he wasn't able to form the words. It had been so strange and he didn't know how to even begin to describe what had happened.

Every detail of every inconsequential thing surrounding him had suddenly been in high definition and pulling for his attention. It was as if the brightness had been bumped up in a video game, but it was everything in his sight, not just on a TV screen. The light cross breeze caused by the open doors and the air conditioner had been more like a hand brushing against his arms, and he could practically taste it on his tongue every time he breathed in. If he had been able to ignore the sudden stream of miscellaneous information bombarding him he probably would have been amazed at just how much he had never noticed before, but all the abrupt input of sensations and stimuli only pushed him over the edge.

Dominic remembered it had started right after Flint transformed back. It had been barely noticeable at the start, becoming a slow build as they had gotten back to the Den. While waiting for Garrett there had been a sudden overwhelming feeling of being hunted and trapped, leading to the panic attack. Everything was pretty fuzzy after that.

Everything was pretty much back to normal, but his head was pounding and stomach was still tender from throwing up. Dominic groaned as he shifted so his legs were hanging off the bed and dipped his head between his knees.

"You okay man?" Ben walked over, holding Penny as she slept against his shoulder. Dominic groaned again in response. Had their footsteps always been that loud? They were making his head pound even harder.

"No. I feel like shit."

"That's to be expected, considering."

Everyone looked over to see Misty standing in the doorway, along with Sol, Augustine, and the twins Thunder and Storm. She looked calm as ever, even a bit cold, but Dominic could see a slight tightness around her eyes. Something was bothering her.

The others were the same, though the twins kept most of their focus on Dominic. The aggression in their expressions and stance was triggering the same feeling of fight-or-flight in him as he had felt in the infirmary. His heart rate began to pick up.

"What the hell do you want?" Samantha's switch was flipped. Dominic would usually try to rein her in, but at this point he was okay with letting her be the mama bear. He could feel his headache getting worse. What the hell was happening to him?

"We came to speak with Dominic, along with the rest of you." Sol walked farther into the room, keeping a close eye on Samantha as she approached the end of Dominic's bed. "How are you faring? We need to know so that we can gauge how quickly this is happening."

"How quickly what is happening?" Dominic tried lifting his head back up, only to drop it quickly again as the nausea came back full force. Garrett was on it, grabbing a trashcan and handing it to Samantha who placed it under neither Dominic's face. He took it from her and emptied what little else he had in his stomach into the plastic bin. It was painful when most of it turned out to just be dry heaving. "Ugh, whatever this is, it sucks and I want it to stop."

Sol's nose scrunched up but she didn't otherwise acknowledge the vomiting. "I'm sorry, but that isn't going to be possible. Once the transformation begins there is no stopping it."

"Transformation? What transformation?" Jarod asked. There was a bit of fear in his voice.

Misty came up closer as well, followed closely by the others. "There were things that were not told to you when you first arrived. We were waiting for after you had agreed to become our mates and do it ourselves then, but..."

Dominic straightened back up. "But what?"

"Things have changed and we cannot afford to wait. It's only been an hour and you are already showing advanced signs."

Ben was getting tired of beating around the bush. "Would you just tell us what's going on? What's wrong with him?"

The werewolves hesitated but Sol looked Dominic right in the eye as she answered. "We believe he is turning into one of us; he is becoming a werewolf."

Samantha's face paled. Ben came up with some extra colorful language and Jarod looked ready to pass out. Garrett and Dominic managed to stay calm but that was mostly due to the pain they were in. Things really couldn't get worse for them at this point.

"How the fuck is that even possible?" Ben took up an aggressive stance towards Sol. She didn't seem impressed by the display.

Instead she sighed. "This is the reason why we postponed telling you. You had so much bias against us already: we didn't want to make it worse."

"So you were just going to turn us into monsters without us knowing?" Samantha walked over to Ben to get Penny, who had begun to cry from the eruption of the room.

Misty looked offended. "Of course not! Turning a human without consent, Destined or otherwise, has always been looked down upon by the Were community. Not to mention dangerous. With the treaties it is now entirely illegal. The human has to consent before being turned." She looked worried after she said that.

Dominic could guess why. "But you just said I'm turning. I never consented to become one of you."

"We know. We don't know for certain how this has happened, but I promise you we are investigating it to our fullest capability." Misty moved in closer to Dominic, taking up Samantha's previous spot in front of him. "Please, you must understand we would never have begun the process of turning you without your consent intentionally, and we will do everything we can in order to help you through this process."

Dominic had every intention of being pissed about this. If he understood what they were telling him correctly, he was changing species and there was no way to stop it. He had guessed something like this would be expected of them, but damn. They could have at least asked, given him the opportunity to decide for himself.

The words were right on the edge of his tongue, but as Misty stood directly in front of him, something in him reacted to her. It was like before; when he had seen her right before breaking out of Mayfield and when she had been on top of him in the warehouse, but this time it was so much stronger. He could actually smell her this time. She smelt of some type of nuts, maybe hazelnut, and coffee. It made his mouth water a bit.

There was a push in the back of his mind urging him to take action. What kind he didn't know. The feeling was too fleeting and faint for him to try and figure it out, but it was long enough to give him pause.

Misty was waiting for his response but Jarod interrupted. "But how is it that Dominic is turning into one of you? I thought you had to be bit or something."

Sol took back control of the conversation. "There is some truth to that, however there is much more to it. Let's go into the sitting room and I will explain things in more detail." She began guiding everyone into the adjacent room that connected the two boys' rooms. There were books, games, baby toys, and other entertainment items populating the entire room but for the most part it was tidy. Living as they had, it taught them to be respectful of what little clean space they could get.

Everyone took a seat. It seemed as if the wolves were trying to sit as close to their Destines as possible without being obvious about it. It didn't escape Dominic's notice how the two big men glared at him as he sat down to share one small couch with Samantha and Penny.

Sol ignored the slight tension and got down to business. "In order for us to properly investigate what has happened, we need you to tell us everything, from the moment Misty left you alone with Flint, to your incident in the infirmary. We need to know everything."

Dominic had to take a moment to focus in on her words. Misty's smell was still prominent in his nose and it was distracting him. "Um, well, Misty came and asked if we would go see Flint. He wanted to see us and he didn't seem to be doing well, so Garrett and I went on our own before the others got back. We didn't think it could wait.

"When we got there, Flint told us he wanted to go outside. Last request type of thing so we couldn't say no. We got him in a wheelchair, he told us about the silver shot and to bring it just in case. It was left behind when the chair got stuck and we didn't remember to grab it. Garrett ended up carrying him to that clearing and we all just, I don't know, hung out. Everything was fine for a while, until it wasn't."

Sol interjected. "Flint began to transform?"

"Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was like he was being ripped apart from the inside. Garrett went to get the silver but the chair with the syringe in it was gone. That was when the wolves showed up. I knew they were going to kill him, but... We fought, and while we were at it, that's when Flint changed, became aggressive. He attacked us and the other wolves. I did my best to talk him down and for the most part it worked. He stopped attacking and seemed to come back to himself for a moment before he began changing back. It wasn't any prettier than when he changed into that wolf-man form but he did change back. Once he was looking like himself again, the wolves came and brought us back here to get patched up."

Sol put a finger against her chin. "I see...was there anything else that happened that you can remember?"

Dominic thought a moment and shook his head. "No. I mean, besides the panic attack."

She dropped her hand down, leaning forward and clasping her hands between her knees. "Was there something specific that triggered the attack? Are you prone to them, or could it have been caused by something?"

"I was just really overwhelmed. All the adrenaline was heightening my senses and it just got to me."

"Describe it to us." It was one of the twins who made the command. Dominic was a bit puzzled as to why they would want to know something like this but continued to describe his sudden sensitivities. Everyone was quiet as he recounted how his sight, smell, hearing, and everything else had been suddenly heightened but Dominic could tell by the wolves' glances to one another that what he was telling them had some sort of significance.

"It's almost completely gone now. It's mostly just smells that are more pronounced." Dominic made a glance of his own towards Misty, which she didn't seem to miss.

Sol was pensive for a time, working through something in her head. Misty spoke up first. "If he is already experiencing heightened sensory-"

"I know." Sol gathered herself and addressed her daughter. "There is little time. You must act quickly if you want this to end well."

"Stop talking in code and tell us what is going on!" Ben snapped. Dominic smirked at his friend's behavior. He had always been the right-to-the-point type.

Sol gave him a look. "As we have told you, there were some things that were not explained to you in the beginning. At the time there was no need to tell you and we were waiting for after you had agreed to become a part of our pack, but it would be best to explain it to you now.

"Do you remember what we told you about humans and instinct?"

They all vaguely did but Jarod remembered the details. "You said that humans don't really have any real instinct inside of them. You described it as being atrophied."

"That is true, for normal humans, but that is not the case for Destines." Sol rose up and began a slow pace around the room. "They have something special within them that sets them apart from the non-Destined. We call it a "gift"."

Samantha interrupted. "What does this have to do with Dominic being changed into one of you without permission? Is that his "gift" or something?"

Sol shook her head. "No, it doesn't quite work that way. Because of the wolf souls residing within them, all Destined humans have a higher amount of developed instinct than a normal human would. It is usually the most dominant aspects of their wolf nature coming through, such as protectiveness, caretaking, self-preservation, or even physical capabilities. All Destines have something like this, but you, Dominic, are different. I believe that your instincts are stronger than any of us realized or even thought was possible. You still wouldn't be able to shift on your own, but they were strong enough to attract others like yourself in order to create this Sistema."

"So this has to do with us? We caused this?" Jarod's voice went up an octave at the end.

"No. The only way for a human to turn is to create a bond with a full-fledge werewolf, so that their instincts can begin to develop and grow. We think Dominic's unprovoked change has something to do with Flint regaining his control and merging with his instincts.

"You see, before a pup reaches maturity, they are bonded to their parents, and through them, their Alphas. Growing up the pup's wolf is being fed through that bond, allowing it to grow as much as it can before they reach puberty.

"When a wolf reaches maturity and bonds with their instincts, the link the child had with their mother and father is naturally broken. During this time the connections for the pup are completely open and vulnerable, until an Alpha or a dominant-enough mind fills in that link. Our best explanation for you, Dominic, is that you unwittingly created a bond with Flint while he was unattached to an Alpha. That in turn, gave the latent instincts in you the jumpstart they needed to begin to develop. Usually it would have been the physical bond, a bite mark, between the mating pair that starts this process, but now that it has begun there is no stopping it. We can only prepare and hope it does not have long-lasting consequences."

Dominic was stunned. He had somehow bonded with Flint? What did that even mean? How had he done it? When?

"But, how can you even be sure that's what happened?" Dominic felt his stomach roll again with the stress he was feeling.

"It is the only explanation we have. Flint is bonded to someone. His link has been established and it was not with anyone from the Five Rivers Pack and you were the only others there. Add to that the fact that you have begun to turn and there is no other possibility. It may be difficult to believe, but I am sure that you have felt the connection to Flint's mind and just haven't realized it yet."

Then Dominic remembered, right before Flint began to become human again, he had suddenly felt Flint in his mind. It had been weak, and at the time Dominic had just blown it off as his own mind seeing the emotions on Flint's wolfish face and empathizing with him. That must have been it. That was when he created this bond with Flint.

"I must tell you this changes things." Sol stopped behind her chair and leaned against it, making eye contact with each of the humans in the room. "We have given you time to become comfortable with us on your own, but it is now time to move forward before more incidents occur. I know," she put up a hand to stop their protests, " this is not how you wanted things, but it has been long enough and while we know you do not know wolf nature, it is becoming more and more difficult for your wolves to be patient. From now on, your Destines will be allowed to come visit you."

It was quiet in the sitting room. The tension had ratcheted up to the point where it was making Dominic feel like throwing up again. He had hoped they could push it back a while longer when it came to the mating thing, but now they had no choice.

"This is not a bad thing. You will continue to live in these rooms together, and we will hold off on seclusion for a bit longer, but keep in mind we cannot wait forever." With that Sol straightened. "Hale has informed me Flint is awake. Rest for tonight, and we will discuss things further tomorrow."

While Sol left the room, Dominic made one last eye contact with Misty before she followed her mother out. Augustine waited a moment longer, opening her mouth as if to say something, before deciding against it and leaving.

The twins were the last to stand from their chairs. Both big men glared coldly down at Dominic as they spoke to him for the first time.

"May we speak with you?" The first twin, the one that glared at him when he had first sat down next to Samantha, never broke eye contact with Dominic.

The second kept his eyes directed toward Samantha and the baby. "In private?" His voice was far more gentle as he looked down at the two girls.

Dominic stood from his own seat, squaring his shoulders. Samantha seemed uncomfortable with the idea of leaving them alone, but Dominic gave her a small smile and suggested she take Penny to lay her down for a nap. She only hesitated a moment before nodding and getting up to leave. Once she was gone into the back bedroom, the three men walked out of the sitting room and into the hall.

They were quietly staring at one another, sizing each other up, before the twin wolves finally gave in and brought up what they wanted to discuss.

*

For a while, Flint just pretended to be sleeping.

He could scent his brothers close to him, as well as one of his sisters, and he didn't want to let them know he was conscious just yet. He still needed some time to process his new condition on his own before he spoke to them.

The second Flint had accepted who he was, his wolf had howled both in his mind and out to the world and merged with his rational mind. It hadn't been pleasant, especially trying to figure out how to deal with the sudden animalistic mindset and trying to shift back to his human form while dealing with the amount of pain he was in. He almost lost himself again during the transition.

But he did it, and now he was lying in the infirmary, still in pain, and trying for the life of him to figure out what to do.

His bond wasn't open, so someone must have bonded to him. Probing the connection, he didn't recognize who it was and he feared another pack had gotten to him while he was unconscious. But if that were the case he shouldn't be in the Five Rivers Den. This wasn't good.

He was gay, that in and of itself was a problem, but now he was disconnected from his Alphas, the only protection he had.

The other problem Flint needed to face was Garrett. Now that he had accepted who he was, it was obvious Garrett was his Destined Mate. If anything, that was his only highlight. It was believed gay wolves didn't have Destined Mates, but that was proven false now. The elders were going to be in a tizzy over that one. It was one of the big arguments they had they said proved gay wolves were defective and not purposefully created by Luna.