What Now? Ch. 01

And, she was supposed to be learning how to spar too. But she couldn't find much time to practice.

Ariel and Lyssa were training with some of the females. Most of them had been sparring for some time but, now, Lyssa was helping to train them against a new potential threat. Humans.

Today, they were working on breaking holds.

A couple of adolescent females were quite fearful about the possibility the den would be overrun by humans.

"Human males will underestimate you because you are female, and even more if you are younger and pretty. Until they learn more about us, it is an advantage. They will see you as weak."

Some light growls emanated from a few throats.

"Therefore, unless they have a gun, you can probably get away from a single human, or even two or three. They may be wary of you, but they won't expect you to attack."

"And if there's more?"

"Head away if you hear or smell them coming. If they are around you, find an opening. They will not expect you to rush them. You will also startle them if you drop your clothes. Men will look at you with lust and that can be a problem. If they can get ahold of you, they might rape you. You must move quickly, change, and run."

"Run. They aren't as fast as us, unless they have cars or 4-wheelers. Send an alert. Tell us where they are and how many."

"But, run where?"

"That will depend on where you are. To the den or the bunker should be your first choice, if you can get there safely. Find one of the males. You may just get away and find a place to hide for a while."

"If things are really bad you will need to get to one of the other packs."

"Another pack? Why would they help us?"

"We all recognize the need to come together now. As wolves, we will stand together."

"So, we just need to worry about guns or lots of them."

Ariel looked to Lyssa. "No. There are other things that they have that they could use against us. That's why nobody should go out alone."

There are hunter's tools - traps, snares, nets. There are policeman's tools - tazers, which shock you, enough to keep you from moving or getting away and pepper spray, hot pepper juice they spray in your eyes so you cough and can't see, oh, tear gas, same idea. Then there's anything they can pick up - chains, bats, tire irons and, because of the legends, some will use silver."

Ariel then picks up the lesson. "We have cameras at several points at the edge of our range. We run our patrols, as usual. We've posted wolves at intermediate points on the range, to transfer any messages."

We've stocked the bunker and can barricade the den, if need be. But we believe it's much more likely that the humans will try legal methods to come after us."

"They haven't yet, what about our lawyers?"

"We are working with them, but human law moves slowly."

"So, we're on our own?"

It was a highly pessimistic attitude which did not bode well for survival.

Alison had been twitchy, howled, and broke from the group.

Lyssa and Ariel shared a look. Lyssa then sent [Anthony. Alison's in heat, come in now.]

Lyssa was a loud wolf and could send for distances, whereas the others could not.

That was something else they'd need to be watchful of. During a female's heat, she was practically oblivious to anything but her mate. And the male could be reasoned with but would not leave her. Sedation of the female would free him but she would be rendered virtually immobile.

The females' cycles were generally regular, predictable, with the exception of those newly mated or who had had a pup recently. Even so, the healers set up a list of females who would go into heat soon as it could be an almost weekly occurrence, depending on pack size. This told them which males would be unavailable, or who should be kept closer to the den so as not to expose them unnecessarily.

Lyssa was expecting her heat soon.