Free Desert Wolf by Heather Long

only accessible by climbing the rock face. Over time, and with thousands of man-hours, they’d crafted pathways, and switchbacks rolling through the surrounding hills to achieve their goal. Occasionally, Cassius climbed it to prove he could.
    Today wasn’t a day for such distractions. The higher they traveled, the more prevalent the scrub brush interspersed with real green. They’d planted trees in their town, tended them, and drilled for water so they didn’t have to truck it in. The road narrowed as they reached the main gates—tall, imposing and utterly impenetrable without a tank or perhaps C-4, according to more than one of his returning vets. Like the walls housing them, the gates were three feet thick and included steel reinforcement. He’d supervised their construction several years earlier.
    During one of his visits to Phoenix, a Hunter had taken him to his place for dinner with his mate and their family. They lived in a gated community. A laughable concept considering their access point consisted of a swing arm “barrier” which actually snapped open more often than not if a car bumped it.
    Not his gates. His gates didn’t open unless he wanted them that way. The FBI investigated him before, during and after the construction. They worried about the isolated little town of extremists, so Cassius invited their agents to spend a week in Summit. Between the nudists running around, and the lack of any violence or religious rituals, the agents fled as soon as their assignment was up.
    The memory coupled with the gates awaiting him amused him enough to bring his bike to a full halt. Glancing behind, he checked the caravan. The SUV was closer than the Hummer and all six of the other bikes were accounted for and no one else. Tugging his cell phone from his pocket, he dialed the access code.
    Answering on the first ring, the wolf in charge of observation for the day greeted him by name. “Welcome home, Cassius.”
    “Good to be home. Open the gates.” They were alerted to his approach by cameras placed at the first switchback. The cameras above would have catalogued the entire convoy, but protocol demanded they wait for a call requesting—or, in his case, ordering—entry. A hiss of the hydraulics sounded, and the gates rolled open.
    Yes, it looked exactly like the fortress it was meant to be. Inside the walls, a small town thrived. Every single one of the people in the town were under his protection and one law remained in force at all times—absolutely no fighting. Summit was neutral territory, so no dominance battles were allowed.
    As soon as the gates opened, he accelerated through, pausing only long enough to direct Trask and his men toward the clinic. Maddy would need looking after, and Bianca and the other healers had updated the facility. Jose, he sent to a holding area, one of the cabins near the wall where he would be watched until Cassius had time to deal with him.
    With two fingers curled into a beckoning motion, he ordered Faust to follow him. The gates closed, and life in the town continued. They grew most of their own vegetables in hydroponic-supported greenhouses. Raised cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens both in Summit and below along the mountain in pastures. They even had horses trained to accept wolves on their backs for long days spent tending the herds. In nearly all ways, Summit was self-sufficient. Hands lifted to wave at him as he rode past, children played, women laughed and men worked. It was about as peaceful a day as possible for his pack. If not for a pack which numbered nearly eight thousand at the last Reaping, he would be inclined to barricade the gates and lock the outside world out.
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    N ot really an option , however, not when the whole of his pack could not live in Summit—which really only had room for a little over two thousand souls and, at current population, hosted only about twelve hundred regularly.
    Faust’s vehicle crawled along the cobblestone streets behind him as