by Anna Lowe
Axel glanced from one eager face to another, then up to the beams of the one-room schoolhouse. His fingers played with the seam of his jeans. He tried sticking on a grin, then took it away. Put it back on again. Tried to keep his balance on the tiny stool he’d been given and checked the clock for the third time in a minute and a half.
“You’ve all seen Mister Axel Waldermann, who’s come to Twin Moon Ranch from far away,” Heather, the teacher, said. “But today’s your chance to meet him in person. Let’s show him how lucky we feel to have him visit us today.”
The kids clapped on cue. Some looked awed; others were all smiles. One little boy waved, and Axel waved back.
“We’ve been studying the concept of culture,” Heather said, motioning toward the schoolroom walls, all decorated with handmade posters about language and food and customs and such. “So we thought it would be great to extend that to different shifters, too.” She leaned in a little with a wink. “I have a lot to learn myself.”
He nodded. He’d heard that Heather, Cody’s mate, was one of a couple of humans-turned-wolf on the ranch. Which got his mind racing. If humans could mate with wolves, then surely javelinas could—
“Mister Axel! Mister Axel!” A boy bounced up and down. “Tell us about the hellhound! Tell us!”
A foaming mouth and glowing red eyes leaped out of Axel’s memory. So sharply, so unexpectedly, he nearly jolted. The pain, the fire in his shoulder. The rocky earth under his side. The desperate voices, calling his name. The wail of a woman, crying over her fallen lover. The drumming of feet: paws, cloven hooves, and booted human feet. Burning pain consuming his arm, and—
“Timmy!” The teacher clapped sharply, bringing Axel back. “We’re not here for war stories.”
Timmy hung his head.
“What we’re here to discuss,” Heather said sternly, “is culture, and how we can compare wolf and javelina shifters.” She tapped a sheet of paper taped to a window. The left side was labeled Similarities, and the right, Differences. “Are you ready for some questions, Mister Axel?”
Axel blinked for a second, because the paper was taped to a window facing the library. With the sun streaming through the glass, the paper was translucent, and the library was right there, tempting him.
“Sure,” he mumbled, letting pleasant memories wash away the disturbing ones. Like Beth on the ladder, one breath away from his lips.
Six hands shot into the air, and the teacher called on one.
“Where do javelinas come from?”
An easy question, because he’d had that story drilled into his head since he was a kid. “My ancestors were boars from Central Europe. After they came to North America, they mixed with javelinas.”
“So that’s why you’re so big,” a little girl breathed, looking at him with wide eyes.
He held back a smile.
“Do javelinas live in packs like us?”
A dozen earnest faces peered at him, and he got stuck for a moment. “Sort of. Not quite.” How to explain? “The core of the pack lives in one place, anchored by the females.” He pictured his mother and the cliffy bluffs where he’d grown up. “But the alpha males roam far and wide, defending the territory. Looking.”
“Looking for what?” the little girl asked.
Trouble, he nearly griped. It seemed his father loved that most of all.
But that was pretty much the way it was. Instead of establishing and tightly defending a limited territory, male javelinas covered vast ranges, which led to all kinds of incursions and disputes, most of which were resolved by tusks rather than diplomacy.
“Why?” someone asked.
He shrugged. That’s what javelinas did. They ran and ran and looked for trouble. Then they fought, and then they ran a lot more. They did that until they were old and gray and creaky in the bones, until one day, they died somewhere far, far from any place that might loosely be called home.
And that was it.
He closed his eyes and wished just a little bit. To be more like a wolf, with a territory and a pack and four walls to call home.
“Doesn’t it get tiring to wander all the time?” a wide-eyed girl asked.
He suppressed a sigh. His dad thrived on the lifestyle.
Axel, well…not so much.
“Nah,” he murmured.
A boy took the marker from Heather and added a note under differences. Wolves: home territory. Javelinas: wander.
Axel stared at the crooked script.
“Can you shift whenever you want?”
He rubbed his bristly beard and immediately got sidetracked into wondering if it was too rough for Beth’s soft cheek. She sure hadn’t seemed to mind, though. Of course, their kiss had only lasted a few seconds…
A lifetime, the inner voice hummed. Our mate for a lifetime.
Our? He jolted a little with realization. That voice was his inner boar. He hadn’t spent enough time in human form to hear it much, and it certainly hadn’t had much to talk about—until now.
A little girl tilted her head at him, and he forced himself back on track. Could he shift whenever he wanted?
“Yes,” he started, perking up a little at the prospect of getting a similarity on the list. “Most of us prefer staying in javelina form. At least, we stay shifted for longer than we stay human.”
The marker made a scratching sound as another student took it over and added that to the differences side of the list.
Differences were winning. Damn.
“I can’t wait ’til I can shift,” Timmy announced.
“Me neither,” added another boy. The two of them nodded gravely.
Axel decided not to volunteer another difference: that javelinas could shift forms even as youngsters.
“When did you start roaming, then?” one of the older girls asked.
“I left home when I was fourteen, as soon as I could keep up with my dad.” He winced a little, remembering the sight of the only place he’d ever known growing smaller and smaller in the distance until it disappeared altogether.
“Cool,” Timmy breathed.
Cool? He’d secretly cried for two weeks.
He shook his head at Timmy. “You never get to go to school.”
“That would be fine with me,” Timmy quipped, and everyone laughed.
Axel shook his head. “You hardly ever get to see your mom. Never get to sleep in a bed. Every day, you run and run and run, and if there’s trouble…” He gulped away the scratch in his throat. The room had gone quiet.
“You never get to see your mom?” Tana asked. Her coal-black eyes were a mile wide.
He tried shrugging it off, but a little twinge registered in his ribs. “Not nearly enough.”
“What’s your favorite food?” a boy blurted, and thank God for that, because they finally found a few more similarities for the list. Wolves liked steak, too, and ice cream.
But the differences side of the sheet filled up not long after that. Heather let all the kids have a turn writing each new entry. Even the smallest one got to write one of the few similarities on the list in big, crooked letters: both wolves and javelinas could live two or three hundred years.
Still, the differences side was jam-packed, like a rulebook reminding him why he should ignore the voice in his head.
The one whispering, Mine. Mate.
Axel stared through the sheet of paper, focusing on the library.
“Do javelinas have destined mates?” a little girl asked.
He kept his eyes on the library. Mates? Javelina courtship was more like a business arrangement.
“Mates? Yuck,” Timmy muttered.
Mates. Axel turned the word over in his mind like a tarnished penny found on the street. He’d never believed in destined mates before. But now…
“I don’t know of too many,” he confessed. “Do wolves have destined mates?”
The little girl nodded fiercely. “Yes! Yes!”
“And how do they know it’s destiny?”
The
little girl seemed to consider herself an expert on the subject. “You get warm all over,” she started.
Yeah, his inner furnace had gotten a few good stokes just from being close to Beth.
“You smile a lot and look a little dreamy.”
He glanced at his faint reflection in the glass. Hard to tell.
“You can’t stop kissing,” Holly said.
Axel sucked in a long breath. That part certainly fit. Breaking off the kiss in the library had felt like fighting a powerful magnet, an inner force.
“And it’s really, really gross,” Timmy concluded, earning firm nods from the boys.
Axel remembered thinking that, once upon a time. Growing up had taught him a thing or two about activities with the opposite sex that didn’t involve climbing trees or tugging pigtails, though. But kissing Beth… Well, that kind of kissing earned a definition all its own.
“Can you shift now? Can you show us?” Timmy cried, changing the subject.
Axel pursed his lips. Sure, he could shift, but he didn’t want to. Wolf shifters were more human than beast. Javelinas, however, were a fairly even split, and their beast sides didn’t cede control lightly. Once javelinas shifted to boar form, most of them stayed that way for weeks. Months. Hell, his uncle Hilmar had gone years.
“Maybe not right now,” he murmured.
“How long are you going to stay with us?” Timmy asked with shining, hopeful eyes.
Every child in the schoolhouse leaned forward.
Axel took a deep breath. His days on the ranch were numbered. Maybe even more numbered if anyone had seen him kiss Beth. Wolves were the most territorial shifters he’d ever come across, and their possessiveness extended to their women. They’d never, ever stand for a boar with one of their own. Never.
And anyway, what would an angel want with a wild pig?
How long would he stay on Twin Moon Ranch? Not nearly as long as he’d like.
“I’m not sure,” he whispered.
“But Christmas,” Timmy cried. “You have to stay for Christmas!”
“Please, Mister Axel! Please,” the kids sang.
There went the inner furnace again, flooding his heart with warmth. Not the same kind of warmth Beth created, but still very nice.
“Please?” Timmy squeaked.
Axel let out a little puff of air. He doubted that kind of pleading would work with the pack alpha, but hell, he’d sure be tempted to try.
His shoulders slumped. No amount of begging would get him what he wanted. Not with this pack’s alpha, not with his father, not with reality.
Please? the inner voice pleaded. Please?
Chapter Six
The library clock struck noon with twelve slow, ponderous bongs—the exact opposite of what Beth’s heart was doing. Namely, bouncing like a jackrabbit at top speed. She looked out the window and hoped—prayed—for Axel to come along.
It had been three days since The Kiss. Yes, she’d capitalized it in her thoughts. Her wolf had drawn her into more than a couple of kisses over the years, but Axel’s kiss… It was more than a kiss. More like a promise. A prelude.
A future.
No kiss had ever done that to her before. She’d had her share of intimate encounters to compare it to. Her wolf demanded the occasional hookup, after all. But none of the fun, physical nights she’d experienced ever translated into anything deeper. Hell, she’d developed deeper emotional connections with characters in books than she ever had with a man.
Until now. Until Axel.
She thought about him. Worried about him. Pined for him. Wondered what he might be doing every moment of every day. Imagined a future with him, even when she told herself not to be ridiculous.
Mine. Mate, her wolf hummed, wagging its tail.
Except Axel hadn’t so much as spoken to her since then, so maybe he didn’t feel the same way. Maybe The Kiss hadn’t moved him the same way. Maybe he’d filed it away in tiny lowercase letters all the way behind all the other kisses a man like him was sure to have enjoyed in his time. Some ordinary, some great…some forgettable.
The only thing that gave her any hope was the fact that he brought his lunch to the picnic table outside the library every day. Well, Tina brought the lunch, along with Axel, but still. Like clockwork, the determined she-wolf would appear at the end of the lane, steering the javelina by the elbow. What exactly Tina was determined to do, Beth wasn’t sure. Judging by the way Tina left Axel parked alone on the bench, she wasn’t interested in Axel that way. And why would Tina be, as a newly mated wolf?
So why did she keep appearing with a smile and departing with a wink?
“Enjoy your lunch, Axel,” Tina called loudly from outside, just as she did every day, almost as if she wanted everyone in the library to hear.
Beth’s head whipped around, and her wolf wagged its tail.
He’s here! He’s here!
“I will, Miss Tina,” Axel replied in his soft, rumbly bass. “Thank you.”
Beth’s inner wolf sighed, just like it did every time. Such a nice, polite man.
She watched him dig in, then dragged herself away from the window and forced herself back to work.
Until the library door creaked on its hinges, and her body coiled instinctively, prepared to throw herself into his arms.
“Hello, everybody!” a woman’s cheery voice said.
Beth’s body deflated faster than a pierced balloon. Not Axel. Just Ruth, honorary grandmother to half the pack.
“We have a visitor,” Ruth called to Aunt Jean, back where she sat cataloging books.
“Oh, I noticed.” Jean winked. “Believe me, I noticed.”
“What part did you notice first?” Ruth replied.
“Ruth! Aunt Jean!” Beth squeaked. Everyone knew that the two older ladies hadn’t lost any of their spark, but did they have to ogle her man?
A little stab of pain went through her every time she caught her slip. Axel wasn’t hers. He never would be.
Ruth chuckled. “It’s hard not to notice that much man in one place.”
Beth’s mind skipped back to the moment on the ladder. She knew he was big, but standing up… God, he was a mountain. A huge, sloping mountain, or maybe even a mountain chain, thanks to those broad shoulders and the barrel chest. The god of shifters had piled on layer after layer of muscle as if there’d been some left over in his creation pile and he might as well use up the rest.
“And such a nice young man,” Jean threw in.
As if Beth needed to be convinced. The man was all power, all might, but without the competitiveness, the constant measuring of potential rivals that marked an alpha wolf. His quiet, steady demeanor was so, so…refreshing.
Refreshing, all right, her wolf quipped, bringing her back to The Kiss. A kiss worthy of a Shakespearean sonnet, except she doubted Shakespeare had ever experienced such a kiss. She sure as hell never had.
Her mind skipped from one detail of Axel to another. The peace on his face when he’d been asleep. The fire in his eyes, the tight jaw as he’d turned away after The Kiss. Had he felt something, too?
Except something wasn’t enough. Destined mates talked about being shaken by revelation the first time they met their mates. And Axel… Well, The Kiss sure hadn’t seemed to shake him.
But could anything shake a man that big? He’d taken on a hellhound, for God’s sake!
“Reminds me of that sweet Baker boy,” Jean said. “Wouldn’t you say, Ruth?”
The older women sighed, lost in their own memories.
“Such a sweet boy…” Ruth echoed.
“Maybe not as tall as the Baker boy…” Jean sighed, looking down the path.
“Not so fair-haired,” Ruth added.
“But, my, what big hands,” Jean concluded, exchanging a naughty glance with Ruth. “Remember those hands?”
Beth nearly joined in. Axel had hands that could crush bones, though they’d been so tender with her. Hands that could sweep a girl away with the slightest touch. Hand
s that could…
Well, those hands could do a lot of things.
Aunt Jean sighed deeply. “Such a nice young man.”
Beth sighed, too.
She peeked out in spite of herself. Axel had finished eating his lunch and was sitting with his eyes closed and his head tipped back. Basking almost, as though he’d never felt sunshine quite so warm or light as pure as the rays that shone down in exactly that place. The round table he sat at was surrounded by six separate, swiveling stools, and he rotated his slightly, following the sun.
She sighed and went back to checking the shelves. Shelves with books that could have been upside down for all she knew, with her focus firmly outside the library walls.
“How has work at the school been?” Ruth asked.
“Great,” Beth nodded. The couple of hours she spent there every morning were fun for her and the kids. She always left tall and proud, because it felt good to help the pack. But the minute she turned her nose to the library, the itch set in again, and she’d hurry over and start watching the clock.
The one great relief was that Audrey had made herself scarce, thank God. She’d spent the last few days busy in town, reopening the hair salon she used to run before leaving Twin Moon Ranch.
Beth winced. Maybe fate was being gracious, in a way, letting her get used to the idea of losing Axel before she had to witness him get reeled in by the likes of Audrey.
“Sweetheart,” Aunt Jean called in a totally different voice. Soft and understanding, without any hint of a joke. Coaxing, almost.
Beth closed her eyes and leaned against the stacks. This was it. The older women had noticed her crush—it had to be a crush, right?—and were about to launch into a let-yourself-down-gently speech. A maybe-someday-we’ll-find-you-a-not-too-boring-mate-of-your-own speech.
Aunt Jean’s soft hand touched her arm. “Sweetheart, have you had any lunch?”
Lunch? Lunch was the furthest thing from her mind.
“I’m fine.”
“I think Axel has some left…”
Ruth appeared by her other elbow. “Tina’s been bringing extra big portions, you know.”
