Getting Lucky

Lucky's confession, that she was the Las Vegas Wolf, the hot topic in every werewolf pack in the United Staes, was met with silence, and she wondered if her intuition had been wrong. "Fuck," she thought to herself, "there I go trying to do the right thing and everything goes all wrong." Nyah was on alert, waiting for any sign of a threat.

"Shit bricks and build a castle," Eli finally said, "I can't believe it. You? You are the wolf that has all the packs in an uproar, wondering why in the hell a werewolf shifted in Las Vegas and made such a public spectacle?" He looked concerned, not angry, but she got the feeling what she had done was not appreciated in the werewolf world. "We try hard to stay off the radar, so what you did seems to have been pretty reckless."

Travin rushed to her defense. "Wait until you hear the whole story," he told their guests.

"Did you kill all those people too?" Daniel asked nervously. From what he had heard, one of the meeting rooms on the top floor of a well known hotel on the strip had been a grisly scene, discovered after the reports of an abnormally large black wolf running through the crowd. He doubted coincidence.

"You are a bit of a celebrity at the moment in both the human and werewolf communities. People are scared, we are scared that people are scared, usually scared people means trouble for us," Eli informed her. "Do you mind telling us what happened?"

Lucky laughed, a bitter edge to the sound. She was thankful for the liquid courage as she began to tell her life story.

"They got me not long before I turned 18. They took me to this hotel, I never saw anything but the inside of my suite, they always put a bag over my head and tied me up when I went anywhere. Really, it didn't matter because I had no way of contacting anyone." She was shaking, letting her long dark hair cover her face, her disgust with her abductors clearly conveyed by her voice. "Those vile pieces of shit started making me doubt everything I thought I knew. They fucked with my head until I wanted to literally cut it off my body. Then, I turned 18 and my body became fair game." She stood up, tears in her eyes. "I doubt you need the gory details to know what I mean?"

The three guys shook their heads, looking at the floor. All three fighting tears for Lucky, none of them could imagine living through what she was describing.

"They sold my body to the richest clientele. Insane amounts of money paid to do whatever they wanted to me, as long as they didn't leave me disfigured." She laughed bitterly again. "One couple learned that the hard way, the only time I ever agreed with the way those scumsucking pigs did things." She suddenly felt that she owed pigs an apology, comparing them to those humans was insulting to the pigs. Shaking her head at her weird thoughts, she continued.

"They beat me up so badly that the next day my "owners," well one of them, came in to my room with a gun to shoot me because they assumed I would be too damaged to make them any more money. But, that night, with that awful couple, was the first time I turned in to a wolf. It happened when I was in my sleeping room, so it wasn't on camera. I already hurt so much but all of a sudden I truly felt like I was burning alive. Within minutes that seemed like hours, I had claws, then paws, and I looked in the mirror and saw this huge black wolf. All the pain was gone. And I heard a voice in my head, it was Nyah, my wolf. She told me not to freak out, and that she was sorry for not waking sooner, I guess she had been trying to get through for a while, but hadn't been able to until that night. She knew what I was going through. She saw it all. I just stood there, staring at the mirror, and listened to her, she promised we would get out of there. I felt hope for the first time in so long. After she had given me the quick version of werewolf basics, I crawled in to the bed and fell asleep. I woke up to a gun in my face, and one of the evil pigs was holding it but looking at me like he was shocked, he almost looked scared. I thought I must have still been a wolf, but it wasn't that. I had completely healed from devastating, face crushing injuries, broken bones, insides torn and bleeding, all of it healed. I looked normal. Better even."

Eli nodded. "We have extraordinarily fast healing, and often after the first transformation we are enhanced subtly."

"I remember I was almost disappointed. I thought he was going to kill me and I truly wanted to die. I truly did." She looked at Eli and Daniel, who wore almost identical expressions, a mix of sadness and rage. Travin was openly crying, shaking his head.

"If those bastards weren't already dead, the things I would do to them would make them beg for it," Travin told them. "I would bring them back to kill them again. If you ask me, she showed way too much mercy when she ended them."

Eli, who had a mate, found her story hard to listen to, he kept thinking of his mate, Amelia, if anything like this happened to her, Goddess, just the thought was almost too much to bear. He did listen, though, his respect for this brave she wolf growing. How did she come out of all that and still have kindness and love in her heart? He could see her kind heart in her actions and sense it from her aura, which was powerful. He gently urged her, "go on, we are listening, Lucky. You have nothing to fear from us. I give you my word." That seemed to reassure her a bit.

"Nyah, my wolf, and I planned our escape for the night of the poker game where I was the prize. We decided there would be no prize because we were stopping the game. We decided they would all die for our freedom. Everyone in that room had to die for our freedom. And they did. In less than a minute. I shifted in the cage they had me in and it broke apart. The chains were nothing to me in wolf form. Nyah tore them all to pieces. We grabbed one of the bags of money, just one bag, it was enough and it was all we could carry. We were careful, took the stairs down, and accidentally tripped an alarm going out through an emergency door."

"It was probably the fire escape," Daniel said. She nodded.

"Everything is kind of a blur, I just ran. People were scared and I felt bad about that but I just wanted to get as far away as I could as fast as I could. I couldn't stand the smell of the blood I was covered in, so I jumped in the fountain and washed it off. The smell was that bad, putrid, nauseating. It smelled like pure evil and malice. I didn't think about the effect it would have on the water and the people nearby. The water, it got redder and redder and the fountain sprayed, I don't know how long it took before someone shut it down because I was long gone by then." She turned on the TV, found the news channel, and sure enough, one of the top stories featured what they called "exclusive footage" of the exotic animal's "literal bloodbath." It showed what Lucky had just described. She almost laughed when she watched herself shake off her fur, the guilty puppy dog look she gave the poor terrified tourists was in such stark contrast to what she had just done. The video obviously came from someone who had recorded the scene from a cell phone. You could hear him saying "what the actual fuck is that? Are they filming some show with big wolves in it? Because wolves are not that big. That isn't real. Is this a show? It must be a show. Amazing special effects." The owner of the phone sounded like a young man, rambling as the scene unfolded. Most people were screaming and running away. This kid talked himself in to believing a computer generated or mechanical wolf was being filmed in a scene for a movie, because the alternative explanation was, well, impossible, like she would have thought a month ago watching this as a human.

Nyah really was gigantic. At least three times the size of an adult wild wolf. She was stunnningly beautiful, after the blood was washed away and the haze of rage and fury began to subside. She realized that people believed the men had been trying to win this "exotic animal," and now she could see why that theory was the leading explanation. She was surprised to hear the newscaster with the perfect white smile say, "what a majestic creature." Lucky gave Nyah a mental pat on the back.

"So, anyway, that is my beautiful wolf, that is me, I am the infamous Las Vegas wolf. I killed 14 men in under a minute and I have no regrets. None. They needed to die. I needed to be free. I refuse to feel guilty for my actions. They were justified. I probably saved countless lives of innocent girls and women by taking them out." An idea tickled in her mind, but she couldn't quite zero in on it. Hopefully it would fully form later, because something important was brewing. She felt strongly that she was soon going to be a part of something that would change the world for the better. She drew strength from this sudden feeling of purpose.

After a few moments of silence, Eli raised the whiskey bottle. "To Lucky," he toasted her, then took a big drink and handed her the bottle. She took a swig, and toasted her wolf. "To Nyah," she passed the bottle to Travin, he and Daniel both toasted "Lucky and Nyah."

Lucky was crying again but her tears were happy ones. She felt acceptance, a connection, a kinship with these werewolves. Travin gave her a look that told her how proud he was of his mate. She ran to him and threw her arms around him, settling on his lap.

He hugged her back, whispering "I am the luckiest werewolf in the world, I can't believe you are my fated mate, you are incredible on so many levels." To the others, Travin asked, "so do you still want to invite us to your pack?"

"Of course," Eli said. He had mind linked his Alpha, and showed him everything Lucky was saying. Alpha Grayson was eager to meet both Lucky and her mate. They would be welcomed with open hearts. There might be a few dissenters, there always were, but they had the Alpha's approval, which was all they needed.

"Yay!" Lucky jumped up and gave Eli a friendly hug. Daniel too. "And Flappy will be okay?" Flappy had fallen asleep with his head on Eli's foot.

"I will make sure and warn my pack not to eat him," he joked. Flappy woke up as they all laughed, looking a bit annoyed, as if he knew what they were saying. He seemed to find their jokes about putting him on the menu less than funny.

She felt something move as she sat on Travin's lap. He jumped up, and she fell to the floor, confused for a moment. Then he started apologizing.

"I am so sorry, I can't help it, you just have this effect on me, forgive me," she cut him off with a laugh that sounded like music to his ears.

"I should be the one apologizing for giving you a hard time," she said, her voice serious as her eyes danced with laughter.

Eli and Daniel were literally rolling on the floor, holding their sides. Travin's face turned bright red, but he only felt a tiny bit embarrassed about being the target of Lucky's quick wit. "Ha, ha, very funny. That's okay, make fun of me, mock my anguish, it's all good," he spoke with mock sarcasm.

When they were all breathless from laughing, Lucky suddenly got serious. "Wait a minute I need to go get my drivers license. What if they make me take a driving test? I'm drunk!" She shook her head, mad at herself for being so irresponsible.

"Werewolves as a general rule have a high tolerance for alcohol. We rarely get drunk enough to be impaired by it. I'm not saying it never happens, but it is rare," Travin reassured her.

"Still, I better take a nap and sleep this off," her words slurred enough for her mate to notice. His protective instincts kicked in. He asked Eli and Daniel to wait while he helped Lucky to the bedroom.

She surprised him by kissing him with real passion. He could smell the change in her. He wanted to throw her down and take her right there, but he couldn't. Not yet. She was tipsy, and he wanted to make sure their first time together was magical enough that it felt like a real first time for his mate. He knew this was very important. So he gently guided her head to the pillow and patted the bed for Flappy to join her for a nap.

He looked back a he closed the door behind him. His mate and his beloved dog, cuddling, in bed. He didn't feel jealous, not at all. All he felt at that moment was love. He thanked the Moon Goddess, vowing to run with the moon and howl his praise to her for the blessings she kept sending his way.

Eli and Daniel sat in the living room, patiently waiting. He smiled at his new friends, who had hooked up the PS5 Lucky had bought.

"Let's kill some zombies," Daniel said. Eli nodded eagerly. Travin knew he had found his tribe.

"Its spawn time!" He exclaimed, eagerly grabbing a controller. He had once taken being one of the guys for granted, a mistake he wouldn't make again. They played and discussed plans for the move to the Pack House.

🌙🌙🌙🌙

Fate listened, always impartial. Fate had plans of her own, and her plans were always followed. Even when they led in directions no one would ever choose to go. Sometimes she left these decisions to her close ally, Chance.

This time, Fate had plans that were too important to risk by playing games with Chance. She had set her plan into motion, and everything was moving in the right direction.

As much as she hated to do it, she had to create a detour. A tear rolled down the Moon Goddess' cheek as she pulled in the tides, sometimes Fate was cruel, and it always broke her heart. Especially when she couldn't be sure that Fate would be kind to her beloved werewolves.