Mourning until I slept led to dreams of Cherish. I'd see her there, standing in the falling snow. Then, in silence, she would be dragged into the darkness.

I would find her there, torn. Then I would see that her blood covered my hands, twisted into gnarled branches, forming into something that was neither the hand of a man nor the paws of a wolf and crowned with knifelike claws. I wasn't awake or dreaming, feverish, I paced my cell.

I heard the door opening and beheld a very powerfully built man with gray hair and the features of a people that had lived upon the ice for a thousand generations. He stared at me for what felt like a very long time and then said:

"I am Lieutenant Colonel Rose. Welcome to Ravenrock. Do you know why you are here?"

"Am I a werewolf?" I asked.

"What you are is called a lycan. You've already met Bruna. She disposed of our procedure in favor of doing things her own way. I don't encourage that behavior. You will do things my way." Lieutenant Colonel Rose entered my cell, stooping to pass the bulkhead-style door.

"What do you mean do things? Am I not a prisoner?"

"You are a recruit." Lieutenant Colonel Rose stated. He handed me a piece of paper with a congressional seal on it. "This is your draft order. I appreciate your diligence in signing up with selective services. Congress hasn't issued a lottery draft, but individuals we need in order to protect our country and freedom qualify for the special draft."

"I've never heard of a special draft." I scoffed.

"This entire battalion is secret. We operate with maximum autonomy, through a system by which our missions can be recommended from any branch of our military to General Stone. When I get a call from him, we deploy." Lieutenant Colonel Rose somehow sounded defensive. He was staring at me, as though he was waiting for something from me.

"He never calls, does he?" I guessed. Lieutenant Colonel Rose said nothing but nodded. I'd struck some kind of nerve. "Okay, so I'm your new recruit."

"Very good." He cracked a smile.

"Is this the procedure? Are we friends now?" I sat down on the bed.

"You don't have to stay here right now. You can come with me, let me show you around." Lieutenant Colonel Rose offered. "And we can get something to eat."

I did feel hungry, and I did need to get out of my cell. "Very good." I imitated his response.

Out of my cell, I looked around and realized we were underground. It was some kind of tunnel, and other quarters were all around mine. I looked and noted mine was number 213. There was no lock on the outside.

"It was unlocked?" I asked in disbelief.

"No need to cage the man." Lieutenant Colonel Rose sounded certain.

"Not even in a top-secret underground base?" I wondered.

"You're not a prisoner." He replied.

"But I can't leave." I pointed out.

"One day we'll get a call from the general and we will all see the light of day." Lieutenant Colonel Rose sighed. There it was again. I had to ask:

"How long since you left this place?"

"Two years, three months." Lieutenant Colonel Rose grunted. "Let me show you our gym."

We entered a rather large chamber in the underground world of Ravenrock. At least I thought it was rather large. I hadn't seen some of the other areas, yet. There were four men in pairs on benches lifting weights and Bruna was there, playing basketball alone. She tipped up her nose and turned and looked directly at me and flashed a smile. My eyes lingered on her workout attire before I turned away from her.

"There's Bruna." I noted. My heart started beating faster at the sight of her. I hated feeling attracted to her, since I disliked her.

"She's made no secret that she has chosen you as her mate. That's how she put it. The first type are wolves that just look like people for most of the month. Do you want my advice?"

"No thanks." I said. I suspected his advice would be to 'be nice' as she'd put it. I had no interest in her.

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"Make it hard on the both of you, then." Lieutenant Colonel Rose shrugged.

I could smell the sweat of the other men in the gym and I realized they were werewolves too.

"I don't have to tell you these men are part of our battalion."

"No matching tattoos?" I asked.

"Tattoos fade very quickly on a lycan." Lieutenant Colonel Rose didn't realize I was being facetious, or he was ignoring it. Letting me be myself was probably part of the procedure he was following.

"You mentioned food?"

"I did. Let's go to the mess." He grinned and when I saw his teeth it finally dawned on me and I said:

"You're one too."

"You didn't notice?" Lieutenant Colonel Rose seemed surprised.

"Well, you're not sweating." I observed and then glanced at Bruna and saw she was just standing there staring at me, holding her basketball with both hands like she wanted someone to play with. "Or drooling all over yourself."

My comment drew a stifled laugh from the lieutenant colonel. I wondered if he had reviewed the surveillance footage of Bruna's visit to my quarters. I bet he had.

As we walked to the place to eat I asked about my training and what was expected of me.

"You mean like boot camp? I'll show you any parade or uniform traditions you want. We don't really get to display our honor like that. We are autonomous, but we have highly trained personnel backing us up with conventional weapons and maintaining our vehicles. They are all non-combat members, and although they are not briefed on the nature of our combat units, I have personally cleared all of them. If they actually saw something they aren't supposed to, they have clearance."

"So, I do nothing, unless there is some crazy mission that can only be solved by sending in a bunch of werewolves?" I frowned, realizing I was going to end up like this guy and spending years underground wishing for deployment.

"Crazy mission." Lieutenant Colonel Rose seemed to be savoring the words and clicked his tongue and added: "I've never thought of it that way."

"What did you think was going to happen when you signed up for this?" I had to ask.

"I'd make my ancestors proud, protect my country and give our kind a home and a purpose." Lieutenant Colonel Rose said without hesitation. I fell silent, his words echoing and making me feel a little ashamed of my disregard.

We walked in silence until I said: "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We are all brothers here." He said as we entered the food place.

"I'm starved!" I nearly ran to the line. I grabbed a tray and got a heap of every kind of glob they had. All of it smelled good and I dug in, eating like I'd never had food in my life. When my tray was empty I was somehow still hungry. I looked across the table where Lieutenant Colonel Rose was eating with more restraint and he nodded. I jumped up and went back for more of everything.

As I was devouring the last of my seconds I knew Bruna was there. I just sensed her presence, or I had caught her scent, or heard her. I was not sure how I knew, I just turned and she was there.

She looked away from me and went to get her lunch. She sat next to the lieutenant colonel and started eating quietly and with considerable appetite of her own. She kept looking up at me with mouthfuls of mush and smiling eyes.

"I'll leave you two alone." Lieutenant Colonel Rose tapped the table and took his empty tray to the dish window.

When he was gone I couldn't help but stare at Bruna. She wasn't shy about meeting my gaze. When she was finished eating she stacked her empty try on mine. I took them to the dish window and when I turned around she was right behind me.

"We don't have to talk. I know you don't like me." Bruna said very quietly. She was blocking me from the exit, and I moved to go around her but just then the rest of the pack entered.

"You're harassing me." I told her. "I don't belong here. Just let me go."

"What's this?" The others surrounded us and one of them stood between us and draped his arms over both of us.

"I'd like to go back to my cell." I complained.

"I'll escort you. It's a big facility." Bruna offered.

"I'll find my own way." I glared.

"No way." The soldier who'd hugged us stood back. "You've got to take orders from her, Private."

Bruna smiled. "I'm going to show you around. That's an order."

This got all sorts of jeers and whoops from the pack members. They left us and went to get their food. Bruna's smile faded slowly as she realized I wasn't going to 'be nice'. "Let's go."

I noted her tone was more subdued and I hoped she would back off and give me some space. She seemed to sense that's what I wanted, and she didn't try to flirt with me or any of her other tricks. Instead, she asked:

"Wanna see something really freaky? We have clearance to visit the level below ours. Wanna go see them?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"There's an older regiment they keep on ice. Before they got us. You know, to deal with supernatural threats." Bruna led me. I sensed her excitement and went with it. Somehow being near her made me care about her.

"What do you mean 'on ice'?" I asked as we descended.

"It's called 'cold hibernation in long-lasting stasis'." Bruna grinned and eyed me for my reaction.

"CHILLS?" I almost laughed. "So, they froze these guys, and we can thaw them out if we need reinforcements?"

"Exactly." Bruna hit a light switch and I beheld the massive underground chamber.

"There's dozens of them." I looked around at the massive canisters with naked men inside, held in some kind of cold gel behind glass. One of them looked very familiar.

"Is that?"

"It is. They used CHILLS hoping that surgeons of the future could save him. He's still alive in there."

"It just keeps him alive, even with a fatal gunshot wound in his head?" I was fascinated.

"I don't know how it works. The molecules of their bodies remain in some kind of temporal lockdown. The coldness is not how that is achieved, but rather it is a side effect." Bruna looked at me while she spoke. I couldn't meet her eyes and found myself staring at some presidential junk instead.

"Thanks for showing me this place." I told her. I felt her hand on mine and I looked at her, meeting her gaze.

"Thanks for warming up to me. You were making me feel ugly."

"You're not ugly!" I stammered and then blushed. "I mean, it's not like that. Have you ever lost someone?"

"No." Bruna shook her head. "I know it must hurt. Wouldn't you feel better, though, if you let me be your friend?"

"That's not how it works." I said softly. "But I'm in your pack now, right? We're practically family."

"I'm glad you said that." Bruna smiled and fell silent. She gestured to me to follow her and we left, heading back to our own quarters. "Goodnight, you."