Catcher put his nose up in the air, sampling the wild smells of a wild place, and yipped happily. He grinned at us one last time, tongue lolling-facing the loss of identity, the loss of his whole, but he was at peace. You could see it. If I’d thought about it, I could see he always had been. He’d known how things would end up, but he couldn’t take away his cousin’s hope, so he’d hung in there as long as he could; as long as Rafferty had needed him to. Now he turned and started to lope toward a far ridge of still-standing trees. Rafferty studied us solemnly with yellow wolf eyes, dipped his muzzle, and swiveled to follow.

That’s when Delilah lifted the gun she’d taken from the body of her Alpha-the others had scorned him for it, but she was more open-minded. She knew she couldn’t take Catcher, Rafferty, and the rest of us as a Wolf alone. Catcher was running in the lead, and she aimed the semiautomatic at him. That’s when I pressed the muzzle of my Eagle to the back of her head. From life, to the edge of death and back, but as trained, I’d never lost my gun along the way.

“No, Delilah.”

“There is enough of All Wolf in the Kin to make our own pack bigger than any Kin pack,” she said, the gun not wavering. “With Rafferty we could be free; we could be what we should be. Running. Hunting. Gone into the green to never be found again. If Catcher dies, Rafferty has no reason not to help.”

Because that was how she would’ve thought if she’d been in his place. Friends came; friends went. Family came; family died. But she thought wrong. Rafferty wasn’t like her, not that it made a difference. He wouldn’t have changed her or the others regardless of Catcher’s death. He would kill Delilah where she stood, but because he was a Wolf and a cousin, not because he was anything like the Kin. Or anything like Delilah.

I might be Auphe, but I knew good from bad, right from wrong. I might lose that ability as time passed, but at this moment I still knew.

I made my choice. Delilah had saved me… in a way. She hadn’t tried to kill me. She’d given me a chance by arranging for her pack and her Alpha to die in my place-if I were good enough, benefiting us both, although benefiting her in more ways than one. But Rafferty had saved me more than once; he’d saved me three times-and on occasions of considerable inconvenience. Rafferty saved. Delilah killed. I liked Delilah, but I didn’t love her and that was why.

She was too much like me.

“Drop the gun,” I said.

She didn’t look around, keeping her eye on her running target. “You not kill me, pretty boy,” she said with complete confidence. “You not kill what we have, will you?” She thought she knew me, predator to predator. She thought I would enjoy watching her kill, because Wolves did. There was no better sex for Wolves than sex over a kill.

I wasn’t a Wolf. I wasn’t Kin. I might be worse one day; I might be worse now. But not with Catcher and Rafferty. Not when it came to them.

I kept the gun against her head and leaned in to whisper at her ear, “You’re asking the wrong question, Lilah. You shouldn’t be asking me if I’ll kill you. You should ask if I’ll enjoy it.” They say Wolves can smell truth. She knew mine.

Rafferty and Catcher ran on until they disappeared into the darkness. And not a single gunshot was heard.

Not this time.

But there could be a next time. Back home, before there or sometime after, our being alike would result in one of us being dead sooner or later. It was how the game was played, among her kind, Wolf, and among mine, last of the Auphe. For now, she didn’t push me and for now, I didn’t shoot. And if I wanted to-badly wanted to…

No one had to know that but me.

Epilogue

My name is Catcher.

I’m running, my brother by my side. No, not really my brother, but he is of my pack and that’s the same thing. He saved my life once, years ago. And I’d saved his soul today. He is Rafferty; I remember now, if I’d forgotten for a while during the fight. I remember more. I remember me. I remember my life. I remember how we came to be running toward the trees under a huge bloodred moon. I remember telling my cousin to go live his life and his saying I was his life; that not only had I saved his soul, but that I’d given him one to save; that I was his family, the best part of him.

He was right. Family should always be the best part of one another.

My name is Catcher and I think this is the last time I’ll know that. Soon I won’t remember that any more than I’ll remember fries and birthday cakes. I won’t remember a spray of freckles across a beautiful woman’s breast and her lips soft under mine. I won’t remember my mother’s Christmas cookies, the brightly colored birds of the rain forest, card games, skiing a black diamond slope, drinking a six- pack and climbing to the dorm roof to howl at the stars. They are the best memories anyone can have. And I had had them. That counted; it did.

But that was then; this is now.

I feel night wind in my fur as I run, the smell of game in the trees, my pack by my side. There’s a life to be made here, a good life for a Wolf… or only a wolf. There is a cliff up ahead; it’s waiting for me.

My name is Catcher.

Finally I’m standing on the edge of that cliff. It’s not a cliff beneath my paws, but it is a real one all the same. I don’t see it with my eyes. It can’t be felt by my flesh, but I can feel it in my mind. I can’t see what’s below. I’m not afraid, though. I’m not afraid, because I have family at my side. I have my cousin who is my brother. He is my pack. With all that beside me, how could I possibly be afraid?

It is now. It is always now.

Now is good. Now could be the best.

Is the best.

My name is Catcher.

My name was Catcher.

My name… my name…

I am…

I am lost, I am found, and then I am free and I am happy.

When I jump over that edge, someone leaps with me, shoulder to shoulder. I smell kinship on him. Kinship is all. I’m not alone.

Never alone.

I land, earth below me, moon above. I am wolf. We are pack.

And that is all I need.

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

– Rudyard Kipling

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Thurman lives in Indiana, land of cows and ravenous wild turkeys. Rob is the author of the Cal Leandros Novels: Nightlife, Moonshine, Madhouse, and Deathwish; Trick of the Light, the first book in the Trickster series; a story in the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe; and an upcoming stand-alone novel, Chimera.

Besides wild, ravenous turkeys, Rob has a dog (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)-one hundred pounds of Siberian husky. He looks like a wolf, has paws the size of a person’s hand, ice blue eyes, teeth out of a Godzilla movie, and the ferocious habit of hiding under the kitchen table and peeing on himself when strangers come by. By the way, he was adopted from a shelter. He was fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy.

For updates, teasers, deleted scenes, social networking, and various other extras, visit the author at www.robthurman.net.