by Naomi Clark
Callie drew in a few deep breaths, centering herself. She’d thought a lot about this moment over the past few days. She’d run through every possible scenario in her head, good and bad. The reality was far more intense than she could have dreamed. The night was colder, the stars brighter, the moon bigger. Devon’s face, shadowed and serious, was more beautiful, and the possibilities before them were more dangerous and more alluring than Callie could quite grasp.
The night weighed down on her.
“Okay,” she said, to herself this time. Then she lifted her voice and began to talk, just to Devon. Just for Devon. “You’re walking through a moonlit forest…”
****
Later, Callie thought it was almost like the wolf had been waiting to burst free, clawing to get out. That was how quickly it happened. In the space of a heartbeat, almost before Callie had finished her first sentence, Devon went from woman to wolf.
There was no time to even be frightened. The great silvery wolf was in front of her before she could so much as gasp. Her muzzle was just a fingertip away from Callie’s own nose, the wolf’s breath hot on her face. Callie froze, holding her own breath, her heart flipping as she stared into the wolf’s brilliant blue eyes. Time crawled to a halt, giving Callie all the space in the universe to notice how soft and silky Devon’s fur was, how her eyes glowed like sapphires, and how her teeth looked big enough to rip Callie into tiny, bloody pieces.
The fear oozed into her bloodstream in the time it took her to notice those details. When Devon snarled quietly, Callie was too terrified to scream. The noise that emerged from her throat was a strangled whimper.
Devon huffed and sniffed Callie’s hair. Callie stifled the awful urge to giggle hysterically. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Noah moving, nothing more than a soft shadow against the stark silhouettes of the trees. It amped up her fear. Surely, surely, he wouldn’t attack Devon while Devon practically had Callie’s head in her jaws?
“Noah,” she managed to whisper. “Don’t.”
Devon growled, shifting her weight. She glanced back toward Noah, giving Callie a chance to look at him properly as well. He was crouched on the forest floor, human-shaped, but looking ready to pounce.
“Callie,” he whispered, gaze locked on Devon. “Move.”
Callie shook her head mutely. Devon would be too quick. She knew that from watching Noah these past weeks. Callie had no doubt that if she moved, Devon would be on her in a flash.
Besides, she didn’t want to resolve this with a fight. She wanted to believe they didn’t need it. She held still, hoping frantically she wasn’t about have her beliefs—and her face—eaten.
Devon huffed at Noah and turned back to Callie. It was impossible to read her eyes, impossible to tell if it was aggression or curiosity there. The only thing Callie knew for sure was that she was the absolute center of Devon’s focus, and it was blood-curdling.
But she held her nerve. Forcing her spine to stiffen, forcing her voice to emerge strong and calm, she spoke.
“Devon Miller.” Her throat was so dry with fear, it hurt to speak and her voice cracked. “Devon Miller. Devon Miller.”
Devon cocked her head to one side, ears perked up. She whined a little, watching Callie no less intently. But there was something inherently less threatening about her now.
Callie’s breath came a little easier.
“Callie, you really should move,” Noah said.
Whether his voice broke the spell, or whether there never had been a spell at all, Callie would never know.
Devon spun around sharply, hackles raised, and barked at Noah. It was a warning, deep and nasty, and Callie’s heart lurched. It felt like she watched in slow motion as everything went terribly, terribly wrong.
Noah changed swiftly, a wolf in an instant. Devon leapt at him in the same instant, and Callie shrieked as they collided. The moonlight cruelly illuminated the fight, sparing Callie no detail as Noah and Devon clashed with tooth claw. Howls and snarls filled the night as the two wolves ripped at each other. She scrambled back until she hit the well, mind racing.
“Devon!” she screamed. “Devon Miller! Noah… Shit!”
In her panic, she forgot Noah’s last name. As the wolves battled back and forth, Callie quickly realized she had to move, or risk getting caught in the crossfire. She dragged herself to her feet, using the edge of the well. As she did, one boot heel caught on loose brick at the base of the well, and she fell down again with a yelp of shock, her spine jarring painfully.
The sound was like a whip crack on the backs of the wolves. They leapt apart, and suddenly they were both staring at Callie. They were both panting and bloodied now, and Callie had never felt so small or breakable in her entire life. She clutched her moonstone necklace and began chanting Devon’s name like it was a magic spell.
She lost count of how many times she said it, but it was definitely way more than three. And with every repetition of her name, Devon became more alert, less feral-looking, until her tail was thumping happily on the ground. Next to her, Noah warily dropped down to his belly, watching Devon intently.
“Now then,” Callie said, heart in her throat. “That’s enough of that. If you two can’t be nice, then you’ll just have to…Well, you have to be nice. Noah, I had it under control. Devon, you need to learn about personal space.”
She babbled on, partly out of fear, partly out of relief, and the two werewolves listened attentively, all signs of viciousness gone. She sounded ridiculous, she knew, chattering away like a magpie, pure, unfiltered nonsense, but it helped her calm down. The thought of taking even an accidental swipe from a heavy set of wolf claws was mortally sobering, and the longer she waffled, the more distance she could put between herself and that thought.
“So,” she said eventually, when her voice was threatening to give out on her. “Are we all… Are we all good?”
Noah made a grumbling sound that seemed to indicate he was good if Devon was good. Devon whined, tail still wagging, and licked her bloody muzzle. Callie swallowed, trying not to think about the blood. Neither of them was badly hurt, that much was obvious, but countless might have beens swirled in her head. Her knees went weak when she thought of all the ways this could have ended. All of them too hurt to go for help? All of them dead?
I’m so out of my depth, she thought, for the millionth time at least.
Devon padded over to her and pushed her nose against Callie’s cheek. Her warm tongue bathed Callie’s cold face. It was a messy, comforting kiss, and Callie allowed herself to relax a little. They were all fine. That mattered more than any might have beens.
“Next time it’ll be easier,” she said to Devon and Noah.
Noah yipped in agreement.
Devon lifted her head to the moon and howled. Her wolf song was beautiful, a rich, joyous music that rippled through the winter air and lifted Callie’s spirits. She sounded … free. And when Noah joined in, lending a deeper note to the vibrant song, Callie’s only regret was that her human vocal chords wouldn’t let her join in too.
She listened to them singing, hugging herself against the bitter cold, and wondering how long it had been since wolves howled in the Blackhurst woods. Decades? A century?
She hoped from now on, it would happen more often, and that it would always be this beautiful.
Suddenly, Noah let out a playful bark and nipped at Devon’s ear before bounding away into the trees.
Devon barked back, sounding surprised, but not mad, and dashed off after him. A few seconds later, happy yips and whines drifted through the darkness, and Callie was alone.
She waited for them to come back. She wasn’t sure how long she waited. But eventually the cold became too much to bear, and she understood with a poignant sadness that her role in this was over, and she went home.
The moon watched her go, and like so many times before, it offered her no judgement and no opinion, only a gentle guid
ing light.
Chapter Eleven
Sleep was out of the question. Midnight had long since passed, and the night was slowly giving way to dawn by the time Callie got home. Exhaustion saturated her very bones, but her brain was alive and awake, and it was going to stay that way.
The magic of the night was unquestionable, but now that she was back home—alone—Callie couldn’t help worrying about Devon and Noah. Should she have waited longer? What if Devon couldn’t change back without help? Or worse, what if Devon just didn’t need Callie anymore? It was a selfish thought, and one she frowned at herself for, but she couldn’t help it. She liked Devon. She really, really, really liked Devon, more than just liked her, and the thought of never seeing her again was sharp and sour.
She sat at her kitchen table in her fluffiest dressing gown, drinking black, bitter coffee, and watched the rising sun gently chase the night away. She’d fallen into a melancholy reverie by the time she finished her third cup. When her doorbell rang, she was so surprised she let out a squawk, and was immediately glad there was nobody here to hear it.
Frowning, she went to answer the door. It was too early for … anyone, really, which had to mean… Her heart filled with hope.
Devon stood on her doorstep, covered in mud, twigs stuck in her hair, grinning like a cat that had gotten several canaries. Or maybe like a dog who’d gotten—
Before Callie could finish the thought, Devon swept her into her arms and kissed her. It was a thoroughly deep, decadent kiss, one that left Callie’s toes tingling and blazed through any doubts she might have about Devon’s feelings.
When they parted, Callie was breathless and wordless, dizzy with reborn happiness. “Hello,” she managed to say.
Devon squeezed her hands. “I’m so sorry I ran off. I just had to move, had to … burn off that moon energy. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Callie said. “Are you okay? Come in. Did you change back okay? I mean, obviously you did. How did it feel? Are you happy? Are you—”
Devon laughed, following her through to the kitchen. “I’ll tell you everything,” she said, catching Callie around the waist. “But there’s something else I have to do first.”
Before Callie could ask what, Devon had lifted her up and sat her on the kitchen table. Keeping her arms around Callie’s waist, she closed the distance between them until they were kissing-close again, her lovely face intense and serious.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “And I don’t want you to think this is anything to do with werewolves. It’s just to do with us. I’m falling in love with you, Callie McIntyre. And I’d be falling in love with you if I’d met you in a bar or in your store or in the supermarket. And I would really like to kiss you again.”
Callie’s heart was melting, she was sure of it. “Yes,” she whispered, winding her arms around Devon’s neck. “Yes to all of that.”
Their kiss had an edge to it this time, a sweet, hungry desire that made Callie feel wild and impulsive. When Devon’s hands slipped inside her robe to settle on her bare skin, she murmured her encouragement. As Devon’s fingers tripped up her torso to cup her breasts, she moaned her need. Made bold by the heat of their kiss, she managed to strip Devon of first her heavy winter coat, then her mud-covered hoodie as well, until she was down to a thin tank top and her bra, and Callie could begin exploring properly.
They had all the time in the world, but Callie found she was impatient, and Devon was too. As Callie caressed Devon’s breasts and ran her thumbs over her nipples, coaxing them to hardness, Devon’s hands slipped down to Callie’s thighs, parting her legs. She ran her fingers up, up, up, until her fingertips brushed Callie’s core, drawing a gasp of surprised pleasure from her.
Devon growled, an unexpectedly sexy sound, and pulled Callie to the very edge of the table, then down onto a chair, before dropping to her knees. She pushed Callie’s legs apart again, and—
“Oh my God.” Callie swooned, gripping Devon’s hair, almost panicked that Devon would stop if she didn’t. But Devon was relentless, her tongue working a very intimate magic between Callie’s legs, and it wasn’t long before Callie was seeing stars.
It was the most perfectly right moment of her life. This woman, this morning, this sweetness, and this fire. Her body felt full of moonlight, full of wolf song, and as Devon teased her closer and closer to climax, she wished feverishly that she would remember this moment forever. Every fine detail, from the ridiculous to the sublime, the smell of coffee in the air, the silk of Devon’s hair in her fingers, the stupid dancing pandas on her robe, and the ecstasy of Devon’s tongue sweeping over her clit with the utmost passion.
And when that climax did hit, just before she stopped thinking altogether, she was pretty certain she was going to remember everything, absolutely every last second, of this morning for the rest of her life.
****
“You need a shower,” Callie told Devon, a little hoarsely, a little later on. She leaned across the kitchen table and plucked a dead leaf from her hair with a smile.
Devon grinned ruefully. “That probably should have been the first thing I did.”
“Oh no!” Callie flushed. “I mean, well. No, definitely not. The first thing you did was great. And the second thing. And the third…”
Devon’s smile turned smug. “Tell you what. I’ll go shower, and once we’re both refreshed and cleaned up, I’ll do what I really should have done first, and take you for dinner. Or breakfast, in this case.”
“Deal,” Callie said, spirits buzzing despite the lack of sleep.
Devon rose, leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, and headed for the bathroom.
Callie poured herself another cup of coffee and settled back in her chair, staring out the kitchen window. The sun was well over the horizon now, brushing the sky in cool winter pastels, all lilac and dusty blue. The moon was invisible from where she sat, but she could feel it anyway, its bright energy singing in her veins, promising renewal, reminding her that all things changed and change could be good.
When she’d first walked in the woods a few weeks back, she’d been seeking release, looking to start a new phase in her life. She’d never dreamed she’d get what she asked for in such a dramatic fashion, but now… Now her life was full of wonder and werewolves, and a woman who was every bit as magical as Callie knew herself to be.
“Thank you,” she whispered to the invisible moon, and sipped her coffee with a smile. She couldn’t wait until the next full moon.
The End
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BONUS SAMPLE CHAPTER
BLOOD WITCH
Blood Canticles, 1
Naomi Clark
Copyright © 2015
Sample Chapter
There was probably never a good time to have the police knock on your door, Lola reflected. But three a.m. on a September morning was definitely one of the worst. The fog outside seeped into the house with the stone-faced detectives, and the brisk chill of the night sank into Lola's bones. She'd only been home a couple of hours; only just stripped off and gone to bed. Now, huddled in her ancient rocking chair by the embers of a dying fire, she didn't feel as exhausted as she should. She felt like someone had stuck a live wire up her ass.
“I know this can't be good news,” she addressed the female detective, who introduced herself simply as 'Hardy.' “So you'd better just get on with it.”
Hardy, a brunette who did look exhausted, raised an eyebrow. “What makes you so sure it's not good news, Miss Guntram?”
Lola tried a smile. “Do the cops ever show up after midnight with good news?”
Her partner, Scherer, looked fresher. H
e sat on the edge of his seat like he might spring up any second, but he smiled back. It wasn't an entirely happy expression. “You caught us out, Miss Guntram. This isn't a social call.”
“Then don't drag it out,” Lola said. His nervous energy was infectious.
They exchanged a knowing look. “Where were you between ten and midnight tonight?” he asked.
The blunt question created a knot of dread in her stomach and she had to swallow hard before she answered. “Working. I was with a client. Why?”
Hardy fixed cold blue eyes on her. It was a searching look, penetrating. If Lola didn't know better, she'd wonder if the detective was trying to probe her psychically. But both detectives felt like nulls to her sharp senses. “Can you prove that?” she asked.
Irritation mixed with the dread. “Yes, of course. I have a diary in my office and you can call the client – although she probably isn't going to be any happier to hear from you than I am. What's this about?”
Scherer couldn't quite manage Hardy's gimlet gaze, but his half-smile had disappeared. “What exactly is your job, Miss Guntram?”
Lola shifted in the rocking chair, wishing she could cover herself with the blanket she sat on. But it would make her look vulnerable and she had a distinct feeling that wouldn't do her any favors. She settled for tightening the belt on her robe and pushing her shoulders back. Three years of childhood ballet lessons had taught her that good posture always created a good impression.
“I'm a spiritual consultant. I help clients with difficult decisions, life choices, with emotional and psychological problems.” That was an edited, socially-acceptable answer. Lola wasn't about to get into witchcraft and spellcasting. She rubbed her wrists absently, glad her robe had long sleeves that hid the scars on her arms.
