Dog Aliens 3: She Wolf Neya: Dog Aliens, #3

By Cherise Kelley

She Wolf Neya wants to start a new pack with Raffle, the dog alien who calls her into nightly visions. But he says no. She decides to make him jealous with Red, another dog alien. But this lone wolf Cholf keeps getting in the way! Meanwhile, Lido spies and Baj flies!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cherise Kelley
• Release date: Dec 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781513095721

Cherise Kelley

Cherise Kelley grew up in a family of teachers. Her father, Ronald Morris, taught social studies and history for 30 years at Arcadia High School in Southern California. Her mother is a registered nurse who teaches parents about the special needs of their premature infants. Her sister, Kristine Morris White, is a grand prix level dressage horse trainer. Mrs. Kelley became a teacher herself in 1991 through a "fifth year" of study at San Francisco State University, after earning her bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught English at the college, high school, and middle school level, but prefers to substitute so that she has time for her writing. Cherise lives in Spokane, Washington State with her husband and two dogs named Raffle and Oreo.

Book preview

1 Neya the She Wolf

Day One

Willamette Forest, Oregon

Early Spring

Hope sprang up in She Wolf Neya’s heart as German Shepherd / Queensland Heeler Raffle told her how well things were going with his new pack mate, Springer Spaniel / Border Collie Oreo.

You mean he’s taught you how to hunt?

Yeah! Can you believe it? I actually got a bird all by myself today!

Neya waited for Raffle to brag some more about his hunting prowess. That would be her chance to subtly bring the conversation around to the two of them being able to be mates, now that he was a hunter. That had been his primary objection to becoming her mate. He’d said she needed to be with a hunter.

But he didn’t brag. He brought the conversation over to how great his new brother was doing, now that Oreo knew he was an alien from Planet Kax.

Yeah, Oreo has put his considerable stubbornness into getting our neighbors to know they’re Kaxians. They’re outdoorsy, action-oriented types like he is, so he has a way with them, you know? And he is so much better at talking to our female neighbor Buttons than I am...

Neya listened intently, but she was still looking for a way to bring the conversation around to the two of them. And not having much luck with that.

And then he caught her daydreaming. So, how’s it going for your pack up there in your northern hunting grounds?

Huh?

He sent an image of himself rolling around on his back, laughing at her sitting there with a dopey look on her face, not quite present. You sure are preoccupied with something!

Neya was glad she had learned how to control the thoughts she sent to Raffle. It was bad enough he knew she was preoccupied. He sure didn’t need to know how intent she was on convincing him to ask her to be his mate!

Raffle fascinated her. He was the only male she knew who could not be counted on to make sure everyone around knew how good he was at the physical skills: hunting, fighting, scouting, guarding... OK, part of that was because he was a dog alien who lived with humans and all the males she knew were wild wolves like herself. Still, his pack mate Oreo was a dog alien who lived with humans. And from all she had heard about Oreo, he was a more typical male.

But now Raffle was sending sensations of himself nipping at her ears to get her attention. Woo! Maybe he wasn’t such an atypical male, after all. This was fun!

She threw herself fully into the mental movie he was creating for the two of them in their minds from hundreds of miles away.

They were together in their imaginations, at the top of a grassy hill, far away from both of their pack mates.

Neya play-growled at Raffle and lunged for his throat.

Raffle moved his mouth to block her.

She feinted to move the other way and jumped in for the bite in the same spot.

He was on to her feint as soon as she made it. He blocked her again.

She parked her front paws.

He did the same.

Their tails wagged wildly and their ears were up. These are tell-tale signs of a play fight rather than a real fight. They stared each other down, each waiting for the other to attack so they could counter attack.

Raffle attacked, pushing his chest into hers in an attempt to knock Neya off balance.

She rolled with it, kicking her hind legs into his and pulling him off balance as well.

The two of them rolled over and over each other down the hill, snapping at each other’s throats and wagging their tails. When they stopped at the bottom of the hill, they stayed tangled up and just moved their heads, still snapping at each other, but also sort of hugging. And they were still wagging their tails.

And then real life called her as it always did out of her visions with Raffle.

Sorry, got to go!

Bye Neya!

Bye Raffle!

***

Back in reality, Neya had all the two-full-moon-old puppies outside near the pack’s den, paired up and practice fighting on a grassy hill much like the one in Raffle’s mental movie, albeit a good bit colder. This was up in the Willamette Forest, hundreds of miles north of where she had first met Raffle in a vision a year ago. The puppies were doing fine on their own, really, but every once in a while they got overzealous.

Especially overzealous was Glar, the budding defender of the litter. He tumbled over Neya now, waking her from her daydream. Wake up, Neya! Pretend rival wolves are coming! You have to stay alert, Nanny!

Neya bit Glar’s ear to tell him she was still boss of him.

His tail went under his belly, and he apologized. Sorry, Nanny Neya.

That won’t last much longer, Neya thought. Like with Belg before him, it was obvious that Glar would become the den defender once he was a year old. He would be her equal. He might even think he outranked her, as Belg often seemed to believe.

Gesturing with her nose for Glar to go back to sparring, Neya ran back and forth between the pairs, yelling encouragement and giving pointers.

His neck’s open!

Go for the high ground!

Feint more!

Keep moving! Jump, bite, retreat, repeat!

She was also there to break them up before they seriously hurt each other, which had been an exhausting task three weeks ago, when they first discovered aggression toward their litter mates. But they rarely took things too far anymore.

They were cute when they played like this, roly poly balls of fluff tumbling over each other with tails wagging to show it was all in fun and no one’s life was in danger. Almost to illustrate this fact, every once in a while one would get thirsty. Suddenly, he or she would break away from sparring and run over to the creek to drink. More often than not, the sparring partner would run over and drink too, so close that the two would lick each other as often as the water. Once they were done drinking, they would go right back to play fighting without missing an action beat.

Once in a while one of them would let out a high-pitched crying sound. This generally meant that the sparring partner had bitten too hard. Today, they all let up immediately when their partner cried, but one time a week ago Neya had to run in and grab the victor by the scruff of the neck and drag him away from his crying partner.

The puppies’ fighting instincts told them to go for the kill. Restraint had to be taught, and that was the nanny’s primary job once they knew all the wolf stories about their heritage and traditions. She had to teach them not only how to fight well, but when to fight and when to run.

She much preferred teaching fighting to carrying food, water, and poop for them when they were too little to fight. Still, she wished she had her own puppies instead of raising her brothers and sisters.

Oh, and the wolf stories Neya had told the puppies over and over before they were big enough to leave the den had also warned the pups about their enemies, such as the dog aliens.

Neya had started to settle in and enjoy sharing the fighting expertise she gained in between puppy litters, out hunting with the pack. But all of a sudden, she stopped and stood stock still with her nose up in the air, nostrils flaring.

She smelled a dog alien stranger and some humans.

Down and quiet! she signaled to the puppies with bites on their heels.

Because of her good training, the puppies complied instantly. Dropping down on their stomachs and not asking any questions, they watched silently as she hunched down out of sight and slithered through the grass on her knees and elbows, over the top of the hill.

She went down a bit and huddled in the bushes to guard the rear of her small pack, signaling the puppies to return to the den.

Run on home and wake Belg up, all of you. Quietly! Tell him three humans are coming with a dog alien.

As usual, Glar moved as if to stay and watch Neya’s back. He meant well, but he was too small to be effective yet.

She pushed her nose out toward Glar until he turned and ran toward the den with the others.

Neya hunched back down between the bushes and was very still. She was downwind from the dog alien, so she didn’t think he would know she was there. She wanted to see him, for some reason she didn’t understand. Something about the way he smelled made her curious. Her instincts were telling her to run for the den now so that the dog alien wouldn’t hear her run later, but her curiosity won.

And then a frightening scent hit her nose: gunpowder.

Neya’s own nanny, Fon, had told her stories about gunpowder and human enemies, of course, and she had passed those stories down to her mother’s litters when she became nanny. But Neya had only smelled gunpowder a few times before, and always here up in the pack’s northern hunting grounds. Oregon, the humans called it.

The dog alien had run on ahead of his humans. Ooh! He looks so unusual, she thought. He was all red and skinny, with long fur that blew in the wind. Irish Setter, she believed his breed was called.

He looked right at her. They stared at one another for a delicious few seconds. He was gorgeous. His eyes seemed to penetrate right into her mind and sense how confused he made her feel. Unlike most dog aliens, he didn’t smell of fear at all.

She wanted to go to him. She had her feet under her and was getting ready to spring off toward him.

And then he mouthed, Run!

That snapped her out of it. What was I thinking? He’s a complete stranger!

She turned around and took off toward the den. She heard him behind her, running off in another direction.

Prey! Humans, he yelled, some prey went this way!

Another scent hit her then, faintly. Downwind of her on the next ridge was a male lone wolf not of their pack. Usually, this would make her fur stand up all along her back, but not this time. Now, she wanted to run to that lone wolf and smell him more closely. Already she was there, in her imagination...

But being a nanny, she knew the wolf stories better than most wolves. She had told them to two litters of puppies now. She knew the dangers of talking to strangers.

What is wrong with me? she thought.

Ahead, Neya heard Belg calling their pack’s grown-ups home from hunting, to come defend the den and the little puppies.

He howled it out so that it