by Rose, Aubrey
By the time I had walked from Gina’s tent back to the communal area where half the pack had gathered for breakfast, I’d already received a dozen good mornings. It wasn’t just that, several people I barely recognized greeted me by name. There were at least three jokes about the intensity of my hangover (getting better, thanks for asking), a couple of very familiar looking cubs begging me to come and watch a new trick they were working on later and one crude but good natured question about what Gina and I had got up to the previous night. At one point a friendly wolf ran up to me and just gave my legs a friendly nuzzle before bounding off between two tents.
I felt a sense of belonging I’d never felt before. All it had taken was one night for these people to accept me as one of their own, no questions asked. I’m sure the fact that I was the guest of their leader played a part in that, but that didn’t stop me feeling like I’d just been adopted by the world’s biggest, most unruly family.
“Hi Nat, you want some breakfast?” It was one of the women who’d been working in the kitchen the previous day. Starlight or Sunflower or something incredibly alternative and hippy. It suited her though; she just looked so wholesome and healthy.
She had an incredible figure. Soft curves that put mine to shame. That had surprised me at first. I’d assumed all the shifters living out here on the edge of civilization would share the whole physical perfection thing that Hutch and Gina had going on. But instead there were a fair few women who tended more towards the cuddly.
The men, on the other hand, were almost uniformly buff and a lot of them seemed like they were allergic to shirts or any kind of garment obscuring the view of their lean muscled torsos. I could definitely get used to that.
“Thanks,” I told her, “But I’ll pass for now. My hangover isn’t too bad, but eating anything right now could have… uh, unpleasant consequences.”
“Ha, gotcha,” she said.
“I was actually wondering if you knew where Hutch is. He’s kind of my ride home.”
“Aw, leaving so soon? I understand, but feel free to come back any time. Even if it doesn’t work out with you and the big guy, you’ll always be welcome here. Anyway, I don’t know where he is. Some of the guys are training over in the main building, you could try there.”
“Thank you.” It came out as a croaky whisper. If people kept being nice to me, I was going to start crying. I almost felt as if I wanted to quit my job and move in. I pondered that for a minute. Was it such a crazy idea?
Over at the main building, a brute of a man on crutches was hopping back and forth along a line of younger men, barking commands as they ran through a series of drills. I waited until they took a break before approaching him.
“I’m looking for Hutch; do you know where he is?”
“Probably prancing around in a field like an idiot. That guy… he hops from one half understood philosophy to another, never pausing to let any of it sink in. I dread the days he decides to train with us. It usually takes me a week to make these idiots unlearn the bad habits that idiot taught them.”
He looked me up and down.
“I’m Morgan by the way. I’m in charge of making sure this motley pack of mutts don’t get their asses kicked too hard.”
“I… oh,” I reached out and shook the hand he offered me. “I thought Hutch was good at fighting. Everyone seems to talk him up a lot.”
“Oh he is. Best I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. He could be one of the greats if he decided to pull his head out of his ass and actually learn how to fight. He’s all about instinct, and controlling his natural gifts. Thinks he’s some kind of Zen ninja warrior poet or something. We drill for hours to get better. He stands on one leg in the field and tries to channel his inner calm.”
“Oh.” That didn’t sound like the Hutch I knew. Then again, I barely knew him, something I was beginning to find out.
“Anyway,” Morgan said, “chances are that’s where he is now. Head straight back down between the main strip and you should see a low wall running off to your right. His happy place is just on the other side of that.”
I thanked Morgan and headed back the way I came. It was difficult to imagine Hutch meditating, but should it be that hard to believe? I had my paintings. Maybe we all needed something to keep us from losing control.
***
I could see Hutch standing in the middle of the field. He was swaying and gyrating through a series of moves with seamless precision. Tai Chi, or at least some variant of it. He was good too. Not that I’m an expert on Tai Chi or anything - he just looked so precise and balanced. There was a fluidity to his movement that defied his size.
He was also naked.
I’d seen plenty of bare flesh over the last day and night. Shifters didn’t really seem to have much of a nudity taboo, which I guess makes sense considering the logistics of changing into a wolf while wearing anything you hoped to wear again another day. But it was still a shock to see this man, who was slowly but surely winning over my heart, as naked as the day he was born.
He was, not to be too delicate about it, big in every sense of the word. I couldn’t resist ogling him in silence for a minute or two until my own ingrained sense of modesty refused to allow it to continue.
“Uh… good morning. Any chance you could put some clothes on? I’m not sure I’m prepared for this so early in the morning.”
He turned to face me with a grin that drove the butterflies in my stomach into a frenzy. “You could always take some off. Meet me in the middle, so to speak.”
“Please Hutch, just some pants at least.” I flushed hard. “I can’t talk to you like this.”
He shrugged and turned to scoop something up. When his back was to me I caught a glimpse of a network of thick scars that ran from the small of his back, down over one of his ass cheeks and terminated halfway down the back of one leg. I’d noticed them when he’d been fighting, but most of the damage had been hidden by his shorts.
He caught me looking over his shoulder.
“Huh? Oh yeah. Word of warning. Never tell a guy you’re about to fight that you’re boning his mom. It won’t end well. Better?”
He turned to face me clad in pair of worn sweatpants that hung so low on his hips I could see the crisp lines of his obliques and a patch of thick pubic hair peeking out from above the waistband.
“Barely.” I struggled to look him in the eye as he walked towards me. “And what about that?”
I nodded towards the impressive ink work that decorated his torso in an intricate spiral. It reminded me a little of Grecian Urns. Amongst the intricate lines and repeating patterns were pictures. People and wolves in a variety of poses, some of them overtly sexual.
“You like it?” He lifted his arms and turned for me. “It’s my story. Just things that happened in my life that mean a lot to me.”
“There seems to be rather a lot of… well, uh…fighting and fucking basically.”
“Heh. Only the important ones. I had a spot all picked out for you. But you had to go and ruin it by drinking yourself into oblivion." He grinned like the wolf he was. Teasing me.
I scrambled to change the subject.
“So you’re up early.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re wondering what I was doing out here, right? It’s called Tai Chi.”
“Huh?”
“What I was doing. Tai Chi. It’s a Chinese martial art practiced for both its defense training and health benefits. The idea is that focusing the mind solely on the movements of the form helps to bring about a state of mental calm and clarity. It’s been around since the sixteenth century, maybe earlier.”
Despite that his explanation sounded suspiciously like something he’d read on Wikipedia and learned by heart, he was ridiculously proud of himself. It was all kinds of adorable.
“So yeah, this guy passed through our camp for a while. A bit of a loner, but still mostly sane. He’d travelled extensively in China and picked up a lot from this secret society of monks that lived out in the jun
gle. Technically I’m not supposed to do it in front of anyone who hasn’t been trained. Maybe keep it to yourself, okay? I don’t really believe in all that nonsense about curses and stuff, but still.”
Okay, that was too much. I laughed out loud.
“I know what Tai Chi is, Hutch. It’s not a secret. I can watch a dozen old Chinese ladies doing it in the park outside my window pretty much every day.”
“Well shit. Seriously?” He looked visibly deflated. As if someone had just told him Santa Claus wasn’t real. I doubted he’d ever looked cuter in his life. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I patted him on the arm in sympathy. “But if it’s any consolation, none of them look anywhere near as hot as you while they’re doing it.”
“Damn right they don’t. But still… damn. I guess at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. I just like the way it makes me feel.”
“And how does it? Make you feel, that is.”
“Hard to explain. Can I show you? Preferably while naked?”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.”
“I’m serious. This stuff is important to me.”
“You do this with all the girls?”
“Nah, we usually just fuck. You’re the first person who has taken an interest. I’m serious. Come over here. You don’t even have to take your clothes off. For now, at least.”
Charming, and kind of flattering at the same time. I was a bundle of nerves as I took a step closer.
“Relax. I’m not going to try and teach you anything difficult. These are just some simple breathing exercises. Shifter one-oh-one. Even pups have to learn this stuff.”
Hutch stood behind me, so close I could hear the fabric of his sweats sliding against my blouse. The man was tall. This close he towered over me, making me feel like a child. Which seemed appropriate, given that I was apparently attending werewolf kindergarten.
He kicked my legs apart a little and took my wrists in his hands, lifting my arms and curving them slightly inwards, as if I were holding a giant mixing bowl. When I realized what was pressing against the small of my back as he worked with me, I almost let an involuntary moan slip from between my lips. But I managed to keep it under control.
“Damn, you’re tense. Your heart is racing. Try and clear your mind. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Slow… steady… deep… try not to think of it as discrete breaths, but a constant stream of life flowing in and out of your body.”
His choice of words didn’t really do much in the way of relaxing me, but his voice was soothing and hypnotic. I tried to forget about his hands and that warm pressure that I could feel on my back through several layers of material. I tried to concentrate on his words and my breathing and forget about the man.
Unfortunately he chose that moment to make everything that much more difficult by sliding his hands along my arms, before wrapping them around my chest, high up so his fingers just grazed the sides of my breasts.
This time I couldn’t stop the moan escaping, but I tried to mask it with a cough. Hutch didn’t comment; he just kept talking in a deep luxurious monotone.
“Now follow that stream of air, down into your chest. Feel the life it brings radiating outwards. Through blood and muscle and nerve. This is what you are. This is all of you.”
I stumbled half a step-backwards and he caught me and kept me upright.
“Now imagine you have something deep inside you. Can you feel it? Deep, deep inside you.”
Oh, come on!
“The wolf. The animal. The beast. It goes by many names. But it doesn’t belong there. It’s not part of you to keep caged. It’s like the air that fills your lungs. It’s like the sun that warms your skin. It’s just another part of the cycle of energy and life. It’s not about letting it out. It’s not about letting it take over. It’s about feeling it inside you as part of that cycle. The same way you feel the air as you breathe in and out. Can you feel it?”
“Always.” I wasn’t sure if I said it out loud or not.
“You need to find that balance. You need to be able to reach a state where these two parts of you are reconciled. It’s not about control. Control is just a word. It doesn’t come close to describing what this really is. You don’t need to control your breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Just as you don’t need to control this. If you can find balance, it controls itself.”
Hutch’s arms were wrapped around me now. His big hands cupped my breasts through the soft material of my bra. I’d been so lost in his words that I hadn’t noticed the shift in position. I certainly hadn’t noticed the buttons of my blouse being undone.
With each ‘In’ I could feel his hands squeeze, ever so slightly, relaxing on the ‘Out’. At least I thought he was. It was hard to tell what was him and what was caused by the rise and fall of my chest with each breath. I definitely couldn’t blame him for the fact I was grinding my ass back against him.
“Do you feel it? Don’t fight it. It won’t take over if you don’t fight it. The balance you’re trying to find is your natural state. It’s where your body wants to be. You can fight better. You can hunt better. You can run faster. You can fuck… you can fuck forever and nothing else will ever come close. Do you feel it?”
“Yes.” Oh God, yes!
“And when we shift it’s the same. The balance doesn’t shift. Just our bodies. Two legs. Four legs. We’re the same. Can you feel it? Do you want it?”
I felt… something. I wanted… something. Hutch had been peeling away layers of clothing but I barely noticed. I was the sort of girl who hid behind a complex system of interlinked towels when she got changed at the gym. On any other day, the idea of being stripped, in a field, in broad daylight would fill me with dread. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I wanted…
I wanted Hutch to push me forwards. I wanted to feel the grass on my knees as he pushed me forward and I raised myself up in offering. I wanted him to take me. I wanted to be pinned beneath him as he took what was his. Lust raced through my body.
“Please… I want… I want to…”
I tried. I tried to find the balance that he claimed would negate the need for control, but it simply wasn’t there. Instead the beast surged forward. Crashing against the cage I had built for it with snapping and snarling jaws. It wanted what I wanted. It wanted to be this big, beautiful, alpha’s bitch. It wanted to be claimed.
Even as I fought to keep it locked away, I could feel its needs adding to my own. I was dripping with sweat. It felt like my blood was boiling, my pulse in my ears like a jack-hammer.
“Yeah… that’s it. You’re ready. We’ll do it together. We’ll run. We’ll just keep running. We’ll rrrrrr.”
His voice started a low growl as he lowered his mouth to my ear. But as he spoke it began to change, becoming a deep inhuman rumble. His body felt different too. Contorting unnaturally against my back as he began to change.
No! This wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to fuck me. Not this. I felt dizzy as I fought to keep the monster under control. I wouldn’t shift. I refused to. I couldn’t let it happen again. Fear bubbled up.
When I’d been with Tommy in that hotel room. When I’d changed into a monster... I had no control. The monster had taken me over completely. But I was still aware of everything that happened. The primal thrill it felt as claws gouged thick red streaks down the length of Tommy’s thighs. It kept me awake at night. The feeling of skin and flesh parting at my command, the pathetic screams of my prey.
“No!”
I fell to my knees sobbing as I clutched desperately for my clothes. The lust inside of me shattered, broke into pieces on the grass. It was gone, the animal was gone, and I didn’t want it back. I was scared of it, more than anything else.
“I’m sorry. Hutch, I—I’m sorry. I can’t.”
A wolf strode forward from behind me. Its paws padded light and silent on the soft grass, but the beast they carried was massive. A slab of muscle
and fur, and yet still, undeniably, Hutch. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he gazed at me with big, dark eyes flecked with sparks of orange.
Even in this form, his expression told me everything. He couldn’t hide the disappointment.
And it just about broke my heart.
Chapter Thirteen
Hutch
We pulled up to the house and she hopped off my bike, too fast.
“Hold up, speedy,” I said. “Can we hang out for a minute?”
“Sure,” Natalie said. I could tell she was still flustered by the training. I didn’t know much about girls, but I knew enough to know that she wanted more than she took. Something held her back. I wanted to know what it was.
“It’s alright,” I said. “The training, I mean.”
“I’m sorry I freaked out there at the end.”
“You did great for your first time.”
Her eyes flickered over to the house and I trundled my bike up into the driveway.
“It’s alright,” I said. “We can chill in the garage if that’s alright with you.”
“Sure,” she said, biting her lower lip. I wanted to kiss her so badly. Aw, hell, who’m I kidding? I wanted to throw her over the side of the couch and do much more than kiss her. But she was a ball of nerves, and I wanted to calm her down before leaving for the night. I could wait for her.
Opening the garage door, she made her way to the couch and sat back with two beers. As I stepped over the boxes toward her, a splash of color under the table caught my eye.
“What’s this?” I leaned over and pushed away a piece of cardboard that was blocking my view.
“Don’t—”
“Whoa, Nat! What is this, an art gallery?” Under the table, there were all kinds of paintings. I leaned closer to see.
“It’s not—they’re not ready for anyone else to see.” Natalie took up the cardboard and tried to block the table from my sight. I took her wrist and she stopped, looking up at me with a plea in her eyes. It was the same look she’d given me at the end of training, like she’d gone too far and was about to regret it.
