Jemmela on the Run

By Margot Honey

In book 2 of the Jemmela in the Ruff series, Jemmela has escaped Warren and Breckenridge School after the crushing blow he dealt her at the end of the first novel. She escapes to Las Cruces, and in rampaging very publicly through several pizzerias, attracts the notice of Were stalkers, humans who know about Weres and are armed for hunt and capture. Instead of taking Jemmela, they catch Warren unawares. He is just as surprised that their secret is known to normal humans, and when Jemmela rescues him, he is careful to bring along a hostage. With some difficulty, they return to Breckenridge, and Jemmela hopes her life as a Were will only improve. It takes an unexpected turn as the Director reassigns her to the graduate portion of the school, the Hunters Quarters, a place where Warren is no longer qualified to go. He has to decide what is best, leaving her there where younger Weres will not be vulnerable to her power and Rogue nature, or rescue her against the Director's wishes. Jemmela has already decided where she's staying, if only she had the ability to get there on her own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margot Honey
• Release date: May 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781370558629

Margot Honey

Writing is a great hobby, and I love entering other worlds and escaping the stress of work and bills. My favorite authors include Anne McCaffrey for the world of Pern and how different their lives were from regular, modern American living. I like Edgar Rice Burroughs for the details of Mars, and Jane Austen because her books were one of the few classics truly worth the eye strain (add Mark Twain to that list). My day job is in small animal medicine, which is often more about soothing fretful owners than diagnosing and treating an ailing quadruped. When I'm not writing or working, I also like to play time management games, and cruising (land or sea).

Book preview

Jemmela on the Run

by Margot Honey

Copyright 2019 by Margot Honey

Smashwords Edition, not to be distributed or reproduced in other formats without permission. Thank you for purchasing this book for your personal enjoyment. If you are reading this novel without purchasing it, please buy a copy from your favorite book retailer and support the production of further works for your enjoyment. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Renee Barratt

Also by Margot Honey:

Jemmela in the Ruff

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Exercising heartache.

Chapter Two: Playing catchup.

Chapter Three: Concessions

Chapter Four: Captured

Chapter Five: What’s good for the goose…

Chapter Six: Her Talented hands

Chapter Seven: Darted

Chapter Eight: Mojo Moffett

Chapter Nine: Questions

Chapter Ten: How to get Home

Chapter Eleven: Getting back to normal

Chapter Twelve: Meet the Dean

Chapter Thirteen: Losing the fight

Chapter Fourteen: Conniving angel

Chapter Fifteen: Accusations

Chapter Sixteen: Rushing through things

Chapter Seventeen: Making progress

Chapter Eighteen: Dining alone

Chapter Nineteen: Spooky

Chapter Twenty: Who is this guy?

Chapter Twenty-One: It won’t work

Chapter Twenty-Two: Welcome to Paraguay?

Chapter Twenty-Three: Her fate

Chapter Twenty-Four: Angus

Chapter Twenty-Five: Hurry home

Chapter Twenty-Six: Settling scores

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Training Grounds

Chapter One

TC

Female Weres could run forever in Full Form. They were the ultimate coursers, running from dusk to dawn, knowing no obstacles because a building or a tree, she would go through it, a lake or an ocean, she could resolutely swim, and the time required was just a matter for people with watches. She could run to the problem, if it involved vampires, or away, if it involved disillusionment.

Jemmela ran back into the hills, running away from the look of disgust on Warren’s face. She’d finally made a mistake he couldn’t gloss over with, Oh, she doesn’t know, she’s New, in that funny way Martina had of saying it. She doubted even Martina would say snatching a rib out of a man was a newbie error. She dug in harder, low to the ground, thundering along. She passed elk and deer and a few rabbits, and she would have stopped to kill and eat, but she couldn’t do it, couldn’t rip something to meaty red bits until she stopped seeing that look on Warren’s face. She cut loose, running as fast as she could.

A pizza delivery man in Las Cruces was her first victim. He was taking in a delivery to a frat party and had four of the huge steamer bags in his car. After pulling into the driveway and running up to ring the doorbell, his car alarm went off. He expected a frat prank; they were common, and even tried to get away with not paying sometimes. When he turned to look, the back end of his car was gone, only the rear wheels and the front seat remaining. The other three pizza bags were gone as well.

An hour later, patrons fled a Bee-Bee’s All You Can Eat Pizza Buffet because a bear had gotten in, eating all of the pizza and quite a bit of the soft serve. By the time the police and animal control arrived, there was only an empty restaurant and strange prints in the spaghetti sauce.

Sometime later, a family style, brick-oven pizzeria called to report they were being held hostage by a mutant sasquatch that growled horribly unless they fed it pizza, preferably with lots of oregano. This time when animal control arrived, they saw just enough to realize they would need a bigger truck. The animal fled while they were debating whom to call for back-up.

Dawn was approaching and Jemmela couldn’t run anymore. She was so full of pizza she thought she would burst, and she was thirsty. The buildings on this block were all small businesses, no houses where she could hide in someone’s garden shed for the day. After examining storefronts, she found one that was untenanted, and by the aroma of age and dust, had been quiet for some time. It did have an alarm system, however, and it took her a minute to think of a by-pass rune like the one on her cell door. Her ex-cell doors, she told herself. No more School. No more stupid games, crazed instructors, or idiot rules. And definitely no more Warren Stalls.

It was his fault straight from the beginning, kidnapping her for a health hazard, a rogue, untrained werewolf. Like kids, they didn’t come out of the box with manners and useful social skills—and like kids, Were society locked up and even killed the ones who wouldn’t toe the line. Breckenridge School was home to most of its students and a prison for the outliers like herself, too old and too wild to be there. Her first months there were awful until Warren stepped in, prodded by that dread Director. Now there was a Frankenstein among werewolves; it was best not to think of him.

Warren had helped her, and in a sense, saved her from what was probably going to be an execution. She wasn’t stupid, and a decade in the foster system had taught her when people in charge were reaching their limit. The Director wanted…

Best not to think what he wanted.

She wanted her freedom, and to do that, she had to graduate from that crazy place, so she’d cooperated. Truly, she always cooperated; it was in her nature to be helpful because it made foster parents like you more. Then they hesitated to kick you to the curb when the ‘quirks’ started. Warren was no parent, but he was a teacher, one of the real ones who wanted the best for his student, not his career stats. He’d adjusted his methods, throwing aside the cookie cutters, and she was adult enough to appreciate that. For weeks she’d been toeing Breckenridge’s line pretty good, in her opinion, and presumably in Warren’s, because he’d taken her on the practice hunt. It was a chance to leave the School and be outside, be real again, and until a few hours ago, she’d enjoyed it. She’d made friends, even if they were just kids, and she’d hunted and slain a real vampire. That part wasn’t planned, but the Were world had almost begun to make sense. Not enough to excuse their fixation with nudity and harnesses, but enough to give her a glimpse of her place in it.

Not anymore. The look in Warren’s eyes said she had no business in it anywhere.

The rune worked, the alarm clicking to green. It was magic, a growing power like the transformation to werewolf, a new skill she was learning to use. It was in her and she couldn’t ignore it, even though she felt like it now, felt like ignoring everything, especially if it would let her erase that look on his face. She’d erase it all, Breckenridge School, Weres, runes, and even vampires, if it were in her power.

The rune worked, the alarm clicking to green. It was magic, a growing power like the transformation to werewolf, a new skill she was learning to use. It was in her and she couldn’t ignore it, even though she felt like it now, felt like ignoring everything, especially if it would let her erase that look on his face. She’d erase it all, Breckenridge School, Weres, runes, and even vampires, if it were in her power.

There was a rune for it, but in her mind’s eye it spelled Suicide. She wasn’t that desperate, just desperately sad. She squeezed through the doorway.

The water was still on. Once the rust had poured out, she had a long drink. She had to pry a drain up from the floor to take care of other business, but a pile of old documents made a suitable nest. She would have a nap and then figure out how to remove the harnesses and chains. She was fairly certain she could think of a way, but first she had to rest.

Chapter Two

TC

Jemmela was incredibly far ahead of him, and the first mile did not go well because the Director’s kick had broken his tail bone. The vampires lurking in the area, hoping the light rune would expire, didn’t make it any easier.

Warren hoped it didn’t expire. Rune magic was durable because it was written, and the ones she’d carved into her old cage were still functional. The Safe-hold, despite the Director’s trip through it, had renewed automatically. Some of these spells were made to turn on and off, or to respond to a specific stimulus. Hopefully it was sufficient that she had turned hers on and it would stay on until dawn.

Jemmela’s trail was easy to follow; it was a straight line of shredded bushes, churned earth and downed trees. If he had been a vampire, he wouldn’t have messed with her either.

He followed her to Las Cruces where the trail went cold on the asphalt streets of a subdivision. He crouched, putting his nose to the ground.

He came across the remains of the pizza delivery guy’s car as it was being loaded on the tow truck. He climbed in a window of the frat house to steal some clothes before sauntering around to the front to inquire.

The pizza guy had no idea, as his back was turned at the time, but he was certain the fraternity was at fault. Warren hung the shirt on a fence, kept the pants, Changed, and loped on.

Sometime about the middle of the night, he passed Bee-Bee’s. The police were still there taking garbled interviews from the employees, and he heard a grizzled officer ask what drugs the teenaged waiter was on. The look of disappointment on the young man’s face was starkly familiar. Jemmela had worn something similar hours ago. The teen’s response was similar, walking away from the officer without answer.

Hours later, Warren felt a little tremor from the hunting chain. He’d left the set on her as the best way for him to track and communicate with the giant Were. He couldn’t control her; truly, no one could, and he had a feeling he’d regret that lack once he found her. An apology wouldn’t be enough.

Circling, he played Marco Polo with the sensation until it grew stronger. The chain was practically buzzing when he arrived at the back of an abandoned restaurant, where he saw her rune on the door. He tried to read it, but his skill with these things hadn’t improved. It didn’t look lethal.

He would have to study if he was going to stay ahead of her. Of course, first he had to get back with her.

He understood why she’d run. In showing revulsion he had betrayed her, hurting her feelings when she had expected a pat on the shoulders. She’d caught him by surprise, offering him that rib so soon after the incident with the seven vampires, after her obvious joy in playing with the carcasses. Of course, most Hunters enjoyed their work, just, in his experience, not as much as Jemmela. He was also out of practice. He hadn’t run to any serious hunts in a few years.

The suddenness of her attack on Clarence was what surprised him. The man’s vocalized dismay had stopped him from thinking clearly. And perhaps, just perhaps, he was feeling a little defensive after the accusations by the other instructors. Did she really kill seven vampires? Did she kill Drulik, too? Sometimes those kinds of accusations made you turn on the one you should be defending.

None of this was telling him what to say to Jemmela, however. Taking a deep breath, he ordered himself to step forward and tap on the glass.

***

She lifted an ear but decided not to respond. If it was some night watchman, he would tell himself to lay off the Jim Beam for a while. If it was a tree branch, it would tap on whether she looked up or not.

The tapping got louder and more insistent. Definitely a human. If it was animal control, she wasn’t going to the pound.

She looked over her shoulder and into Warren’s eyes. Despite the harness she wore, a magical device meant to block aggression towards the stupid and heartbreakingly cruel, she managed a growl, lips rippling back to show every fang. His human face was very pale, the eyes wide and unblinking in a gaze that was neither challenging nor submissive. It got paler as she continued her display, the corners of his mouth turning down. When he just stood there, she snapped her jaws a final time before turning her back on him. She would have been happier seeing Eckart.

She heard the door, and the tread of his human feet as he entered. Her muscles tensed but he didn’t come close, choosing instead to walk a wide circle around her until he could sit in the doorway to the next room. Ignoring him, she tucked in tighter, inwardly cursing herself that he’d found her so quickly. If she’d been smart, she would have shucked the hunting chains while she was waiting on her Sicilian Double Meat at that last pizzeria. He wouldn’t have found her for days. Probably.

When she awoke around mid-afternoon, stretching and trying to remember where she was, he was still there. As her memory kicked in, her fur stood up, particularly when she saw him sitting in that corner, wearing khakis that were too big for him and no shirt or shoes, awake like he never needed to sleep. Well, she didn’t care how he did it anymore.

She snapped at him to get out, she had to pee. His face lit up in surprise before closing down, saddened. He left the room, and that surprised her. She’d half-expected to have to bite him.

She tanked up again at the spigot; hunger was pleasantly assuaged for now, but she would have to eat again come nightfall, preferably at pizzerias that hadn’t yet hired mercs with bazookas. She’d also have to find some clothes so she could get human. Then she would have to find a job, and some identification. She groaned, rolling over on her back despite the harness’ handle digging into her. Breckenridge School still had her old life locked away somewhere. Could she start over from scratch? Walk into the records office and say she lost everything in a house fire, no ID, no birth certificate, no socsh? Wouldn’t they want money for new copies, and maybe an explanation of where she’d been the past year?

Putting out the flames and sifting ashes wouldn’t fly any better than saying she’d been kidnapped by werewolf scholars. Stupid scholars, who hadn’t learned a thing about loyalty or friendship.

Jem, I’m so sorry. Please let me apologize.

She hadn’t heard him come back in and alarm made her shoot upright, growling and snapping. The harness made a small effort to restrain her and she ignored it, coming within inches and spraying saliva in his face.

You lousy--! She rounded on him with every vituperation she could come up with, just to be sure he knew how she felt. She had done a great rune, a life-saving rune, one that drove off the horde of vampires that would have slain every student trapped in that forest. She’d done it because he asked her to help, and all he could say was Why?! like she’d punched his grandmother. She hadn’t even killed Clarence, she’d been so careful, and he was a werewolf, for goodness’ sake! The rib would grow back!

Too bad the harness hadn’t let her use Warren. When she was done screaming at him, she turned away and let momentum swing her tail out to thump him. He crashed into the corner, cracking the dry wall. Of course, a half second later he was standing like nothing happened, still in human form. She should have swung harder, let him eat brick.

Jemmela, please! I made a mistake!

She growled at him again.

He dropped to his knees. She backed up, snapped, and left the room. She didn’t want to see him on his knees. It reminded her of Wilson kneeling on his back, and she hadn’t liked that either.

The next room had a pair of sinks and a massive old stove. Maybe this place used to be a restaurant; she hadn’t looked on her way in last night. She settled to the tile to wait for dark.

That night she went out to find more pizza. She didn’t hear Warren following, but she checked behind her several times, just in case. There was no sign of him, and all she could sense through the hunting chains was his sorrow. He deserved to feel sad. He deserved to feel worse. Why had she thought…? She knew they weren’t friends--it was sick being friends with your kidnapper. But it had felt like there was some respect between them. Had he been faking it, secretly despising her for the Rogue she was, all Throwbacky and too old? Did he think her teeth made her look stupid? Was it her tail with the big thumbprint, and no feather hairs making it flag like the other female Weres?

Tail snapping, she reached an intersection and waited in the shadows for traffic to clear. She liked her tail. It was prehensile. The others had to pick up things with their mouths, which was hardly sanitary.

Traffic cleared and she darted across. The next block had a pizza parlor, and if it was a buffet, she’d help herself, then make a run for it. Guilt was starting to pick at her, since people were losing money, but her options were limited right now.

Once she was settled, she could try to reimburse them, pay these people back for the food and damages. Tonight she would steal some clothes and try to find a rune to take off the harness and chains. She cast around one more time to make sure Warren wasn’t lurking in the shadows.

The pizzeria was a mom-and-pop establishment, with a steam table set up in the middle of the dining room. She hooked one half of the double doors with her tail and shrugged the other open with her shoulders, thankful there was no center bar.

No one noticed immediately because most of the seating was booths on either side of the room. She finished off the remains of a veggie pizza before the screaming started, but had to turn her ears down to block the noise to suck down the slices of four cheeses. The next one, barbecue chicken pizza, was great; she’d have to remember that one.

Something thumped her on the back of the head. She jerked sharply, cracking the sneeze-guard, thinking Warren had followed her.

It was a man with a baseball bat, a robust fellow in his thirties dressed more like a patron than an employee. He had already loaded for strike two when she looked up. He brought the bat down over her eye, his feet coming off the floor with the force of his strike.

She blinked slowly at him before leaning back under the sneeze-guard to lick up another pizza. Shouting, he brought the bat down on her hand.

The aluminum just happened to get the very end of her ring finger, right on top of the claw. Pursing her lips with pain, she unthinkingly reached out with a back leg and kicked.

Her paw caught the bat, shearing the top two-thirds of it off and into a decorative mirror across the room. The man fell to the ground screaming.

She smelled blood. Whirling away from the pizzas in a scatter of Plexiglas, she saw him holding his hand, the thumb gone. She looked around and saw blood on her claws. People were running and screaming, climbing over tables to get out, and she was frozen looking at the man she had injured. He was just a man, a human man. That thumb would not grow back if he sucked on it. Even if they reattached it, would it ever be the same? With just a reflex kick, she had maimed him. What if she had hit his arm? Or his neck?

His thumb had fortuitously landed in the salad bar, her nose guiding her to its hiding place in the romaine. She slid the bowl out and started to take it to the wounded man, but he had run away already. Sirens blared. She hurriedly scooped ice onto the digit before escaping through the backdoor.

After a few blocks, she had to stop and pant, worry shortening her breath. She was in an alley behind a residential neighborhood, the blind fences of backyards shielding her from view. Clothing flapped on the evening breeze in one of the yards, and she liberated some elastic waist pants and a tee shirt before continuing towards the abandoned restaurant.

The sound of emergency vehicles made the guilt resurge. Stopping where she was, in the dark of a quiet yard, she returned to human form. She could not stay in Full Form in the real world. She had almost killed a man tonight.

After listening, to be certain she was still alone, she removed the harness.

Or tried to; it wouldn’t come off. The straps moved and slid, acting like they were going over her shoulder, yet never making it. She tried sliding a stick under the straps to pull them down, and the straps wouldn’t move. Her human teeth were no more effective than her Were ones, and there were no buckles anywhere, though she had watched Warren thread the straps through two buckles and tighten them. She tried to think of a rune, and had a good idea for one, but couldn’t find the right implement to scribe it. It wasn’t a twig. The chains were no better. Warren had put these magical things on her to control her, and blast it all, they were on like glue. She couldn’t win!

Disappointment mixed poorly with shame. The image of the thumb in the salad flashed before her and she sank to the ground, naked, frustrated, sorry and sobbing. She cried for her old life, such as it was, for the old pain inflicted by Westfall and Eckart, and this new, heartfelt pain inflicted by the stupid man she had begun to trust. Why hadn’t she known better?

She had respected Warren as much for his persistence as for his lack of abuse, and if she completely overlooked the business about the clothes, he had been a gentleman. He didn’t leer, or wag his eyebrows, or cop a feel. He was thoroughly business like about everything, past the point of reason, if even half of what the health book said was true about female Weres and estrus. Even the Director had been mad to get at her.

Shuddering, she tried not to think of him. The Director was the poster child for the monster in every nightmare and horror movie where innocents were messily slain. Not devoured; he’d kill just for grins, she could tell. Why he was a school administrator just didn’t make sense to her.

But he didn’t matter…Warren didn’t matter. No matter how gentlemanly he’d been before, he’d used up that credit looking at her like…like she was the monster. A nasty one.

Which was probably how the fellow without the thumb saw her.

Pulling at the straps with frustrated strength, she moaned, wishing she could throw it all away, memories, Change, Warren—everything. Where was a blackout when she needed it?

The blackouts had hidden the Were from her conscious mind, letting her function without knowledge of the shaggy creature she turned into. It was almost like having two lives, except her Were surfaced infrequently, usually when she was angry, or sleeping. Once she was awake, the damage left behind was nothing that could be blamed on a scrawny young woman working her way through college. In a sense, she’d been freer then than she was now.

Yet now, wide awake, she couldn’t avoid taking the blame for damaging things. Damaging people.

The leather stretched