Queen Wolf

by Erin M. Leaf

  “What did you do with yourself all week?” Paige asked.

  “Not much.” Avery grimaced. “I moped around, to be honest. Went shopping. I even took off for a few days and stayed overnight in Manhattan. Saw a show. Went crazy in my own skin. I don’t know what’s going on with me.” She picked at the pizza box, shredding the corner of the cardboard into small flakes.

  “Maybe you just need time to get over the jerk.” Paige reached out and squeezed Avery’s hand. “It’s been, what? Two weeks? Three?”

  “Three, and I don’t even miss him. Not at all. What does that mean? It’s like he barely exists in my head,” Avery said, rubbing her temples. “I don’t even know why I bothered to date him. Aside from being angry that he had the nerve to cheat on me, I don’t feel any different. I’m not lonely.”

  “He was cute, and he didn’t require batteries?” Paige sipped her drink. “Those are good enough reasons for some people.”

  Avery made a face. “Yeah, I guess. Except I never let him get past second base.” She glanced at the door to her bedroom, just beyond the living room. She kept her one and only vibrator in there and hadn’t bothered to change out the dead batteries in at least a year. Possibly two. Brian hadn’t been all that great at kissing, let alone anything else, not that she’d gossip about it. She just put up with it, because none of her other dates had been any better. Maybe tepid kissing is all anyone ever gets? she mused, wishing real life was more like a romance novel. Torrid passion might be fun.

  Paige finished her pizza, then sat back. “Maybe you’re one of those wolves who needs her fated mates in order to be happy. Anything less is just a letdown.”

  Fated mates? As if. “Yeah, right. That’s a myth. No one even knows anyone who’s actually been mated for real, like in the legends. Those are just stories told to young girls. My mom was into those stories, and I remember how sad she got every time she told me one.” Avery gathered up the empty pizza box and started flattening it. “And anyway, if you remember, the only wolves who supposedly find their fated mates are—”

  “The Alpha, his Beta, and the Queen,” Paige interrupted. “Yes, I know. Don’t you think it’s kinda kinky how the stories say that only a trio can be truly mated? Like, our own legends are stories about polyamory. How cool is that?” She giggled. “Old Dame Bridget would probably have a canary if that actually happened in real life.”

  Avery smiled at the thought of Mitch’s grandmother faced with such a situation. “Well, I’m no Queen, so no worries there.” Avery stuffed the pizza box into her recycle bin. “And think about it. Who’s the presumptive heir to the pack?” She pointed at Paige. “Fletcher is. You’re basically saying that you want to see me hook up with your brother and his best friend, at the same time.” Avery shivered a little at the thought, not that she’d admit it. The thought of two lovers instead of one always rang her bell, but that kind of thing was just a fantasy. She liked Fletcher just fine, and Mitch, too, but she didn’t really know them. She’d been a child when they’d left to go on their walkabout. “That’s kind of weird, Paige.”

  “Yeah, it’s a little weird, but I like the idea of you being my sister for real,” Paige said, unexpectedly. She smiled crookedly, her light brown eyes affectionate.

  Avery went still as her vision suddenly blurred. What the hell would she do without her best friend? “Oh, Paige. You’re already my sister in my heart.” She hugged her best friend, swallowing against the surge of warmth she felt. “If I start bawling, it’s your fault.”

  Paige laughed as she wiggled out of the hug, wiping her eyes. “I’m not crying, you’re crying.”

  “Uh huh,” Avery said, blinking hard. She gave in and wiped at her face. “Dammit.”

  Paige smirked. “Anyway, now that you know Fletcher and Mitch are coming home soon, I can tell you about my shitty day. I had to help my mom clean her and my dad’s suite in the big house. Which makes no sense, because it’s not like Fletcher and Mitch will be sleeping in there. Fletcher has his own rooms on the second floor that he and Mitch can share, just down the hall from the Alpha’s suite.” Paige put away the lemonade, then plopped back down at the table. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to escape before she had me scrubbing the damned walls, too.”

  “Those walls are made out of logs. You couldn’t scrub them if you tried.” Avery glanced outside. The sun had only just begun to dip below the tops of the trees, even though it was almost seven at night. She stifled a yawn. She needed a good night’s sleep more than anything right now.

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t put it past my mom to try.” Paige tilted her head and gave her friend a sad puppy look.

  “Oh my God, stop it. You can stay here tonight. You could’ve just asked,” Avery said, chuckling. “I don’t know why you don’t move out of the big house. There’s another little cabin right down the road from here, as you know. Your uncle wouldn’t mind if you moved in there. No one would mind. You’d still be on pack property, and you’d be closer to me, too.”

  Paige shrugged. “I don’t know. I like being with my family. Most of the time.”

  “Except when your mom goes on one of her cleaning rampages.” Avery rubbed her arms, then walked over to shut the inner front door. The night was cooler than she’d expected, and since she couldn’t shift and sleep in her wolf’s fur, she had to do things the human way. Like usual. I’m a broken wolf. Not exactly human, and not exactly werewolf.

  “Even then, I still like it. It makes me feel like part of the pack,” Paige said.

  “You are part of the pack,” Avery said. “I don’t know why you feel like you aren’t. I’m the one who is the odd wolf out, since I can’t shift.”

  Paige just looked away, and Avery knew this was one of those things her friend didn’t want to talk about. And since she didn’t harp on the Brian thing, the last thing I’m going to do is harp on her issues. “Come on. Let’s build a fire in the living room fireplace and play some cards or something. We can worry about tomorrow when it comes.”

  Paige smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Great.” Avery headed for the front porch. “Hold the door for me, will you? I’ll grab some logs so we don’t have to go out again later in the night.” She slipped out and headed for the small woodpile neatly stacked under the window. Just as she crouched down to grab a few logs, she heard it. The howl was long and low, and it made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The second howl was only a hint higher in tone, and she shivered as heat bloomed in the pit of her pelvis. She straightened up, staring into the deepening twilight. What the hell? she thought, unsettled. She licked suddenly dry lips. Those are not coyotes. I would know. And she knew the howl of every wolf in Boulder Pack, and those two weren’t familiar.

  “Avery? You coming?” Paige asked, holding the door open. “We’re letting all the mosquitos in.”

  “Did you hear that?” Avery asked. She didn’t look away from the woods. Deep inside her soul, her wolf paced restlessly.

  “Hear what?”

  Avery glanced at her friend, frowning. She thought the howls had been rather loud, but if Paige couldn’t hear them… Another pair of howls rolled in on the dusk, like the wind before a storm. Her pussy clenched, and she swallowed, hard. “That. Those howls. Did you hear that?”

  Paige stepped out onto the porch. “I don’t hear anything.” She took the log from Avery’s hands. “Besides, you know my dad wouldn’t let any strange wolves onto our territory without a lot of advance notice to us. It just isn’t done. Strange wolves can drive through on the public roads, but that’s about it. No roaming in wolf form, remember?”

  Avery shook her head. She knew what she’d heard, but then again, she definitely hadn’t been feeling like herself lately. She crouched down and grabbed two more logs. “Okay,” she said, even as her wolf paced faster. She rolled her shoulders, trying to push away the sense that there was something she had to do.

  “We can ask my dad about it tomorrow,” Paige said. She held open the
door with her foot. “If there are strange wolves running about, he needs to know. He’s the Alpha, after all.”

  Avery smiled her thanks, and went inside, locking the door behind her. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “Even so, you should listen to your wolf, Avery, and don’t tell me she didn’t hear anything.” Paige set her log down near the fireplace. “Your hair is sparking.”

  Avery stopped short. “What?”

  “Your hair.” Paige reached out for one of Avery’s long red strands, and a spark of static electricity jumped to her finger.

  “What the hell?” Avery dropped her logs and ran her fingers through her hair. It felt fluffier than normal, but no static ran through her fingers. Her wolf howled in her head, and she winced, then rubbed the back of her neck.

  Paige was staring at her. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I feel like I need to shift, but you know how pointless that is. I’ve tried a thousand times,” Avery said. She wanted to go outside and run and run until she couldn’t move. “God. What the hell is wrong with me?” She turned to the door.

  “Maybe you should go out and try again.” Paige crouched down and began setting kindling on top of a fire starter.

  Avery shook her head. “No. I can’t.” She went back to the front of her cabin and swung open the heavy inner door. The screen kept out the bugs, but not the breeze. She lifted her face and inhaled deeply, then froze. Something enticing lingered on the wind. She inhaled again, closing her eyes. Her wolf silently howled long and low in her mind, and she exhaled, but then the scent was gone. Her wolf flicked an ear at her, and then faded into the back of her head, as the beast had been doing lately. Avery nearly jumped out of her skin when her best friend put a hand on her arm.

  “What is it?” Paige asked, sounding worried.

  Avery waited for a long moment, tasting the wind, but the scent never returned. “Just the breeze talking,” she told her friend, and then she closed and locked the inner door.

  Chapter Two

  “I smelled it, too,” Mitch said, standing at Fletcher’s right shoulder, as he had been doing all their lives.

  Fletcher glanced at his best friend. He couldn’t even begin to hide his frustration. Not from Mitch. “You feel it, too, right?” he finally asked, running his hands through his hair impatiently. He’d let it grow lately, and it fell just below his shoulders. Sometimes he felt as if he should cut it all off and be done with the annoyance of it, but something always stopped him. His wolf snarled in the back of his skull, and he grimaced. Arousal hummed in his body, as it so often did these days, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Nothing made him feel any better anymore.

  “I feel it,” Mitch said, voice low and mild.

  Fletcher glanced at his soon-to-be official Beta. Mitch wore his hair short, but it was his blue eyes that most people noticed first. “How are you so calm?” he asked, irritated.

  “You think I’m calm?” Mitch laughed, and the sound raised the hair on the back of Fletcher’s neck.

  “Oh.” Fletcher shifted his weight uncomfortably.

  “Yeah. Oh.” Mitch walked forward, standing nude on the jumble of rocks that topped the mountain’s ridge. It was full dark now, and no one was allowed to hike the sanctuary’s property once the sun set except pack members. Fletcher wanted to join him, maybe run his hands over Mitch’s perfect skin, but they’d been down that road too many times and he knew it would only lead to more frustration.

  “We should go,” Fletcher said instead, knowing that his parents were waiting for them back at the big house. He and Mitch hadn’t been home in five years, and he was anxious to end their exile. It was time to stay home. His wolf agreed. Fletcher took a deep breath, and moved closer to Mitch, shivering slightly as the cool air slid across his bare skin. His cock was half hard, and he almost took himself in hand, but then he remembered what had happened the last time he’d tried to masturbate and sighed. He couldn’t even get off on his own anymore, and he knew that Mitch had been having the same problem. He forced himself to refocus his thoughts. “Our stuff probably arrived today. Mom and Dad are probably wondering what the hell we’re doing, sending all of it ahead via post.”

  Mitch shrugged. “Your parents won’t wonder. They know what it means.” He gave Fletcher a sympathetic glance. “Even my grandmother won’t argue over it, and you know she rarely lets anything go, not if she can chew over it.”

  Fletcher grimaced again. “Shit.” His wolf had matured in the years he and Mitch had spent on walkabout, learning from all the packs they’d visited across the world. They’d served as ambassadors for Boulder Pack in wars and isolated villages, in peace and during delicate treaty negotiations. Now, though, his instincts were telling him it was time to come home. Time to take over as Alpha. “I don’t want to hurt him,” he whispered.

  That got Mitch’s attention. “Your father won’t let you do that.”

  Fletcher rubbed his eyes. “My father isn’t as young as he used to be.” He remembered the last time he’d been home. His wolf had nearly taken over, and the only thing keeping him from challenging his own father as Alpha of the pack had been his iron self-control.

  “Your father knows what’s coming,” Mitch said, putting a hand on Fletcher’s arm.

  Fletcher froze as static sparked over his skin, and then he jerked away. “Fuck.”

  Mitch swallowed, then took a careful step back. “It’s definitely time to go home.” He shook out his hand as if it hurt.

  Fletcher knew it wasn’t pain that Mitch was trying to shake off, but arousal. He stared at his friend. Mitch stared back.

  “Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m being split apart,” Fletcher finally groaned, clenching all of his muscles. His cock had hardened fully the moment Mitch had touched him, and it was all he could do to keep his hands off his friend. A quick glance down told him that Mitch was in a similar predicament. This shit had been happening more and more often the past year. At first, they thought it was just that they weren’t getting laid enough, so they’d hooked up and tried to work out the arousal with random women, but the moment the night ended, the cursed cycle would start all over again. Then they figured they’d try and jerk each other off, and that had been even worse. It was as if their bodies and souls were intimately threaded together, but something wasn’t quite right with the connection. Neither man had been able to bring the other to climax, and their experiments had left them frustrated and desperate.

  “The answer is out there,” Mitch said, pointing north, towards home. “I can smell it, and so can you.”

  “Fuck. I can’t go home yet, Mitch. I’m not ready.” Fletcher let his wolf take over. It was too fucking difficult to think as a human. Skin and bones blurred into something entirely different, and then he was his beast, with fur and teeth and claws. He lifted his head and howled, not surprised when Mitch echoed him, standing in his wolf form just back from Fletcher’s right flank. He turned to his friend, and Mitch flicked an ear at him, loyal as always. Mitch had already followed him to the ends of the Earth. He’d follow him around this mountain for one more day.

  He knew it was time to go home, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

  ****

  “Hurry up, or we’re going to be late,” Paige said, throwing a pair of jeans at Avery.

  Avery stood at the window and stared at the sunrise just now painting the sky behind the trees yellow. Her skin prickled. Her wolf paced inside her head. She looked at the jeans on the floor, and everything inside her wanted to kick them away. She tried again to let her wolf out, but nothing happened, no matter how hard she concentrated. Her skin prickled as if she’d jammed a finger in a light socket, and then the crawling sensation moved into her bones. She moaned and gave up, crouching on her heels. She dropped her head into her hands.

  “Avery,” Paige said, kneeling beside her.

  Avery shied away when Paige reached out. “No, don’t.” She took a deep breath and held it for eight counts, then exhaled.
“Sorry,” she said, dropping her hands from her face.

  Paige put a careful hand on Avery’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  The touch made her skin crawl, and her wolf howl inside her head, but she nodded anyway, gritting her teeth. “Just unsettled.” She stood up, then grabbed her jeans and shoved her legs inside. “I’m fine.” She forced a smile.

  Paige frowned, looking at the window. “You’re not fine, but we are out of time.” She pivoted and headed out of the bedroom. “I’ll wait in the car. Maybe grab an energy bar or something. You know you’ll feel worse if you don’t eat.”

  Avery made a face, but she pulled on her t-shirt, and then went into the kitchen. After rummaging around the cupboard, she found the last stick of beef jerky, and tore it open. She grabbed her cell phone and keys, and shoved them in her pockets. She skipped wearing a bra and panties, because she couldn’t bear to have elastic next to her skin these days. Good thing the t-shirt is thick cotton, she thought, not for the first time. Or everyone and their mother will see my nipples. She glanced down, annoyed at how they poked at the fabric. She put her hands on her breasts, ignoring the ache in her pelvis, and then she sighed and went out, locking the door behind her.

  “You ready?” Paige called out the window of the driver’s side of her car.

  Avery nodded, ripping at the jerky with her teeth and chewing so she wouldn’t have to answer with words. Her wolf whimpered, and she tried to soothe her beast mentally. She vowed to go for a good, hard run after work, even if she had to do it with a human body. She needed it desperately, regardless of the weirdness afflicting her.

  Paige started the car. “Okay, then. We’re off.”

  ****

  Six hours later, Avery ducked into the private bathroom in the office set behind the gift shop’s checkout counter and locked the door. She shuddered as she leaned against it, breathing too quickly.