Guilty of Love

Chapter Two

July 2nd

'Dad?' I asked in our pack mind link. 'Dad, can you hear me, or anyone for that matter? How far ahead of us are you right now?' I waited for an answer but did not get one. They have to be at least 20 miles ahead of us right now. This is what I get for being picked as the carry-all-van driver. "This sucks" was all I could say.

"It's hot in here, can we at least turn the van on to cool off?" asked my little brother. He is 7 years younger than I am and just as annoying as any little brother might be. He is however turning out to be a very strong member of the pack. He just turned into his wolf self three months ago on his birthday and I was shocked to see his coloring His wolf is so silver that it almost shines. Very opposite from my coal black coat. I get this from my dad, where he got his silver coloring is beyond me.

I looked over to him and sighed, "No Clayton, we cannot turn the van on, it is overheating and we cannot risk blowing the engine. Can you hand me the cell phone please, dad and the pack are not answering me."

I took the phone out of his hand and dialed my dad. One ring, two ring, three ring, voicemail. "Can you please call me back, the van broke down, I am in a little town, I think it is called Hermosa. Yeah, that's it, Hermosa. I am not sure how far ahead of us you and the pack are, but can you or someone come and help us out please? Thank you, love you." I hung up and and had to release a little growl, my stomach did as well. Clayton just looked at me and laughed. It was then that I realized that we had passed a little bar and grill about a mile back. "Want to go and get some lunch? It could be a while before they stop and realize that we are not following them and before dad can check his phone."

Clayton looked over at me and his eyes lit up, the boy sure could eat, like any other growing wolf. If they had eating as an Olympic sport, they could dominate it every time. "Thought we were going to die of starvation here, let's go." He jumped out of the passenger side door before I could reply to him. All I heard next as I was grabbing the keys and my purse was, "Race ya!!"

I had to yell out to him before he got too far down the road, "HEY, stop Clayton, I have to leave a note for dad if he gets back before we do." I tore a piece of paper from the small notebook we use to keep track of gas purchased and wrote, "Hey Dad, we got hungry and ran down the road to get something to eat, you should be able to tell where we are. Oh, and way to realize that your favorite child (that's me) was no longer following you. Just kidding. See you soon.... Sonny. Love ya." I tucked the note under the windshield wiper, locked the doors and ran to catch up with Clayton.

He had started walking back to meet with me and stopped about 100 feet from the broken down van and trailer. I ran up to him and threw my arm over his should as we made our way down the road. Along the way, we didn't say very much. We had already talked about everything that we possibly could while riding in the van. I kept my ears tuned the entire way to make sure that nothing would come jumping out to attack us, just something that we do, always on guard. I could not help but notice how many little flags were planted along the road, almost forgetting that it is Fourth of July weekend.

"I cannot wait to see the fireworks this year; I hope that whatever town we are in that night has them." I have always loved seeing the fireworks through my wolfs eyes, makes them look as if they are right in front of my face.

For some reason, Clayton did not answer me. I noticed that he had his ear buds in, the boy goes nowhere without his music. I could not believe that this towering beast next to me was my "little" brother; he had grown about a foot in the last six months. He stands just shy of our dad's height now; Clayton is about six foot tall these days, and has dad's thick black hair. Really the only thing that he took away from our mom was her deep green eyes. I feel sometimes that I got the short end of the stick. I am small and petite, like my mom. I got her wavy light brown hair and olive skin, but I was lucky enough to get dad's eyes. "My best feature" I tell him when I need to suck up for something.

As we walked up to the bar and grill, I could not help but laugh at the name of it. The Howling Wolf, this must be fate. Clayton looked at me with a crooked eyebrow as I pointed up to the sign; he also let out a little snicker.

"Well, the name fits I guess, I can smell them all over this place. We may want to be careful here." His tone became very serious and I could sense that his wolf was on alert now.

I looked up to him with a reassuring smile. "We will be fine, we are only passing through and are just here to get a bite to eat and we will be on our way."

"I hope you are right, I would hate to have to kick some random wolf-ass to save yours. Let's go get this over with; I am going to waste away here."

His wolf was not the only one that was on edge, I could feel mine inching her way up to the surface. I had to stop and take a few deep breaths to calm her and myself down. Clayton and I took the last few steps up to the door and got hit with the overwhelming odor of wolf. "It's going to be okay Clayton, we will be fine, and we will just have to ask for the highest ranking wolf in the place to let him know that we mean them no harm." I tried to sound as cool and collected as possible.

We should have known from all the trucks and motorcycles in the gravel parking lot that this place would be packed. There had to be at least 75 wolves and humans in here. I could not help but get a little mortified now; I could feel that almost all of the eyes in this place were now on me and Clayton. I scanned the room and saw one man that didn't look too intimidating and walked up to him, even with all the different scents filling the room, I could tell that he was a wolf. I held out my hand and introduced myself. I had seen my dad so this a hundred times I had to keep calm and act strong.

"Hello, my name is Sonny Chilton, I am from the Crimson Falls pack of Maine, I am looking to talk to your Alpha, Beta or highest ranking member that may be here today." I tried to keep my voice from quivering while talking to him. He looked at me with a confused look on his face, then gave me a big smile.

"Well, hey there, Sonny was it?" I nodded back to him. "My name is Jake, let me be the first to welcome you. I think that the man that you are looking for would be Sean Casey, he is the Alpha and is taking council with a few members of the pack in the back room." He pointed to a door at the back of the bar and gave a little head jerk and said "If you go up and knock on the door, he should be able to talk to you. Well, you know what, seeing as how we are old friends, I will go with you, come on."

I followed him through the crowd and waited while he knocked on the door and talked to the giant of a man that answered it. I could barely make out what was being said, I was just hoping that it was good.

"Okay." He said as he turned to face me. "Alpha Casey will see you now, go on in."

I looked up to him and gave him a gracious nod and walked through the door with Clayton close behind me. It only took a second for me to catch the distinctive and amazing combination of leather and sandalwood. I looked quickly around the room until I found the owner of it. As he looked back at me, our eyes locked as my wolf started screaming out to me.

"MATE!"