Aurelia pointed to her cabin. “Please, come and sit and you can tell me why you’re here.”
Chapter 3
Zack forced his coyote back down and followed her to the small cabin, noticing a well-tended garden off to the side. There was no doubt the young woman was his mate, and his animal side wanted to claim her now.
The air was only slightly cool, but a small fire burned in the stone fireplace that covered the north wall of the small dwelling. Aurelia added more wood, and he watched as hungry tongues of flame suddenly licked the new additions, causing them to smolder and then glow. In the corner stood an old-fashioned loom. You make your own cloth?” asked Zack.
“About all I do is work in my garden and make hand-spun garments to sell in the village. That’s a back-strap loom.”
“What does that mean?”
“That wide strap you see attaches around my waist. I can use my body weight to keep the tension strong.”
“What all do you make?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Belts, ponchos, bags, things like that. Nothing really special. It’s kind of a dying art. Abuela had the loom in her attic and taught me how to use it.”
“She’s quite the lady.”
“She trusts you, or she wouldn’t have let anyone show you the way here.” Aurelia walked over and pulled out one of the chairs at her table for two. “Why are you here, Mr. Wind River?”
“Please, call me Zack.” When she nodded, he took a seat across from her. “I’m here for two reasons. The first concerns a member of my pack.”
Aurelia frowned. “Your pack? What does that mean?”
“Consider them an extended family for now. I promise I’ll explain more about the pack later.”
She sighed. “Okay, go on.”
“My family is in trouble, and I don’t know what else to do but ask for your help.” He spent several minutes telling her about the missing children, their recovery, and the illness they now suffered from that none of the doctors could diagnose. “Their condition continues to worsen, and we’re all afraid they might not have much time left.”
Aurelia got up and picked up the poker to stir the logs in the fireplace. The light was fading quickly, the trees casting eerie shadows outside the cabin’s only window. “There’s no guarantee that I could help if I go back with you. My gift has always been strongest with injuries, instead of illness.”
“Does that mean you won’t try?”
She looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “Of course I’ll try. Children shouldn’t have to suffer. I just wanted to make sure you understand there aren’t any guarantees.”
Zack nodded. “I understand.”
“Besides, Abuela believes it to be my destiny to leave here with you. I’m not sure why she feels that way, but I’ve learned, over the years, that she’s rarely wrong. When do you wanna leave?”
Zack let out the breath he’d been holding and smiled. “The sooner the better. My alpha warned me not to take too much time in getting you back.”
“Your alpha? Is that like your leader?”
“Yeah, he’s my leader. I want to tell you everything because I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. But I’m afraid of scaring you off.”
She gave a rather unladylike snort. “After the years I spent at the hands of your government, I doubt you could do anything that would truly scare me. I had resigned myself to die by my own hand when Alvara befriended me and planned my escape. Once you accept death, nothing else can ever bother you again.”
“Do you still feel that way about dying?”
Aurelia looked out the window. “Sometimes, when the loneliness closes in on me, but it’s not very often anymore.” She turned to glance at Zack. “I’m getting hungry. Why don’t I fix us something to eat, and you can tell me about this alpha, and anything else you’re keeping from me. We can head down the mountain in the morning and see about making some arrangements to travel back to the States.”
Zack grinned. “That’s a deal.”
She lit two lamps and then moved to her wood-burning stove and laid a frying pan on the surface. Picking up a spoon, she stirred something in a pot simmering at the back. “I hope tacos are okay with you.”
“Sure, anything’s fine.” As he watched, she began assembling what appeared to be a make-your-own taco mini-buffet with beans on the side. Deftly, she fried corn tortillas in the heated skillet. When she was done, she placed everything on her small, scarred wooden table. Grinning, she picked up a warm tortilla from a towel-covered bowl, folded it in half, and took a bite while he studied their meal. Warm tortillas, tender beef in a sauce, beans, and some kind of chopped white cheese on the side.
“You wanna beer?” asked Aurelia.
Zack glanced around the room. “Not a warm one.”
She giggled, stepped out the door, and disappeared around the side of the cabin. Before he could gather his wits enough to follow, she was back toting two ice-cold beer bottles.
“How the hell do you keep them cold?” he asked. “I haven’t seen anything to make me think you have electricity up here.”
Aurelia laughed. “There’s a fresh-water stream that runs behind this place. It comes down from the top of the mountain, and it’s cold year round. I have a few well-placed baskets that hold anything I want kept cold.” Grabbing an opener from the counter, she flicked the top off a bottle and handed it to Zack.
He touched his bottle to hers. “To a successful journey.”
“To a successful journey.” Aurelia turned up her bottle and took a long drink.
An hour later Zack pushed back from the table groaning. “That was delicious. You can’t get anything like that back home.”
“Tell me about your home.”
“The mountains back in Wyoming are beautiful, but nothing like here.”
“No,” she said. “The climate’s different. I don’t imagine I’d run into the same animals on your mountain as you’re likely to find on mine.”
“I’ve scented deer, raccoons, and even large cats. What other animals might I find if I took a walk through your woods?”
“Well, first, I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you’re armed. You might see a few pumas or jaguars with the occasional spider monkey thrown in. Get a little closer to the Cartagena River and you might find a thirty-foot anaconda, condors with wing spans larger than ten feet, and even a herd of capybara.”
“What are capybara?”
“They’re like aquatic rats that live in herds on the banks of the rivers here. Pretty nasty creatures.”
Zack shuddered and tried not to look sick. “You’d run into coyotes, deer, raccoons, and maybe a possum or two near my place. We’ve got wolves, bears, falcons, and a feline or two. Pretty tame stuff compared to your home here.”
“How big is this place you live in? For coyotes, wolves, deer, and bears to all cohabitate together, there must be a lot of land. They don’t normally live so close to one another.”
Zack cleared his throat. “Our family is a little different.”
“Your family? I thought we were talking about wildlife.”
“With my family, it’s one in the same.” He didn’t want to lie to her or start their relationship keeping secrets, so he decided he needed to be honest with her from the beginning. “You, of all people, should be able to understand having a supernatural gift that we feel the need to keep hidden from the world. My family has such a gift.”
“Does this have something to do with the dual souls Abuela says you have?”
“Yes, it does. My race is referred to as shape-shifters.”
“Your race? You’re not human?”
“It’s more like we’re more than just human. We carry a special gene or DNA marker in our system that allows us to change our physical form into the animals that share our soul.”
Aurelia settled back in her chair and studied him carefully. “You’re telling me that you can change into an animal.”
Zack nodded. “I can change i
nto a coyote.”
She bit her lip. “What about the rest of your family?”
“Well, that gets a little complicated. I was adopted by a wonderful threesome that just wanted to share their love with children.”
“Did you say threesome?”
“Yeah, I did. Two brothers ended up mating the same female. They wanted children, and hadn’t been able to have any of their own, so they went to one of the National Council’s homes for children and picked out a few to take home.”
Aurelia’s eyebrows rose. “How many is a few?”
“I have four brothers and one sister. All the boys are adopted, and then out of the blue Kitania got pregnant and had my sister, Rennia.”
“You said your family was complicated.”
Zack nodded. “Yeah, we’re all pretty different. My brothers Eric and Synia are wolves. My brother David is a bear, while Macon is a falcon.”
“What about your sister?”
Zack laughed. “She’s very different. My adoptive fathers are wolves, while their mate is a cat. My sister can shift into either animal. She inherited both their genes.”
“You keep saying mates. Is that like wolves that mate in the wild on National Geographic?”
“Yeah, it’s exactly like that. Fate gives us one”—he grimaced—“or sometimes two, specific mates that are perfect for us in every way. We spend most of our adult life looking for that mate, rejoicing when we find them. Finding your mate guarantees you a life filled with love and happiness, never leaving you lonely again.”
“What happens if you never find your mate?”
Zack ran his fingers through his hair. “Sometimes a shifter will marry anyway, just to have children, and to not spend their life alone. It’s a gamble because they still could find their true mates. Sometimes two might marry because both of them have lost their true mates and don’t wanna be alone. They’re never as happy as the ones that find their fated mates.”
Aurelia rubbed her fingers back and forth across the wood, studying the top of the table.
“What are you thinking?” asked Zack.
“Am I your mate?”
Zack sucked in a breath and had to force his coyote back down. “Yes, you’re my mate, Aurelia. And I’m overjoyed at finding you.”
“Did you know I was your mate when you helped me escape?”
“I knew something was different about you. My coyote had this urgent need to protect you, and that had never happened before. But I can’t honestly say the mating scent was there.”
“What’s a mating scent?”
“That’s how we recognize our mates. Once we scent them, we can’t be happy without them. Remus, my alpha, and I both think you were too young to produce a mating scent. You would have been too young to mate, so your body wouldn’t have started producing it yet. It’s tied in with puberty.”
Aurelia leaned back and crossed her arms over her stomach. “So you’re my destiny and you have two souls. Can I see your coyote?”
Zack grinned. “I’m happy to show him to you, but I don’t think you’d be happy to see him right now.”
“Why not?”
Zack felt his face flush. “Have you ever seen a coyote wearing a pair of jeans?”
She giggled. “Of course not.” Zack stared at her with his brows raised and waited for her to understand. He nearly groaned when her eyes widened and she licked her lips. “You have to take off your clothes to change.”
“Exactly.”
“If you’re worried about embarrassing me, don’t. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a virgin. About two years ago I had a very brief, unsatisfactory fling with one of the migrant workers Tio Jorge hired for the summer. I think we were both happy when it ended.” She cocked her head. “Does that make a difference to you?”
Zack’s head was swimming with her admission. “No, of course not. That would be pretty double-standard since I’m not a virgin either.”
“So, does this mean I get to see your coyote?”
* * * *
Zack stood and pulled off his shirt. His muscular chest was smooth, with only a fine line of hair near his waist heading down. His two, flat brown nipples pebbled in the chilly night air. He kicked off his shoes and then his fingers moved quickly unfastening his belt and sliding his jeans down his legs. His erect cock looked formidable, resting against his lower abdomen, nestled in a patch of dark curls.
He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes. The air around him seemed to blur just before tiny tufts of reddish gray hair began sprouting all over his body. She winced at the crunching sounds coming from him as his body shrunk and reshaped, his face morphing into a snout. Before she knew it, an animal resembling a red German shepherd stood in front of her. His reddish fur was long and looked coarse and heavy. A black band of longer hair ran down the middle of his back and formed a type of mane. He studied her with bright, yellow eyes.
“Uh, hello? I forgot to ask if you’d know who I was once you changed.” The animal walked over and rubbed against her leg. She tentatively placed her hand on his head and scratched behind his ear. She giggled when he let out a sound somewhere between a growl, squeak, and a purr. She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense. I should be scared to death and running for my life, but I feel perfectly safe with you. Abuela always told me my destino would never hurt me. I guess I always thought they were just stories.” Kneeling, she put her arms around Zack’s neck. “The stories that she told me when I was younger gave me hope that someday I’d belong to someone special, someone I could call my own. Those stories kept me going from year to year.”
Aurelia gasped and backed away when the coyote began to shake. In almost the blink of an eye, a very naked Zack crouched in front of her. “Be my mate,” he said, “and I swear you’ll never have reason to be lonely again. You’ll be my whole world, and if you let me, I’ll become yours.”
She took a deep breath and tried to keep her gaze above his chest. “I want to say yes, Zack, but I need a little more time. We just met a few hours ago, and I’m not ready for a naked encounter with a shape-shifting coyote.”
Zack chuckled and reached for his jeans. “I’m sorry, love. I wasn’t thinking. We don’t view nudity like others do because we have to get that way to shift. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“I’m not embarrassed. I’m just not ready for any intimacy yet. Tell me about this mating. Is it like a wedding ceremony?”
“Yes, and no. Just being mates is considered being married in our culture. Although a lot of us go ahead and get married in the human world as well for tax reasons, and so our children will blend in.”
“Shifters pay taxes?”
Zack laughed. “Yeah, we’re just as human as you in every aspect except we can change into an animal. We have drivers’ licenses, weddings, go to college, and get degrees. I served my country in the Marines for eight years. We try to appear as human as possible.”
“You have members that have married?”
“We’re called pack, just like a pack of wolves. Remus is our alpha, or what you’d call the top wolf of the pack. His word is law. And, yes, we’ve had several weddings in the pack. My brothers, Eric and David, recently mated the same woman and then turned around and had a formal wedding ceremony.”
Aurelia frowned. “Who’d she marry?”
“She married David because he’s older, and then had a second ceremony without a preacher to say her vows with Eric. And my brother Synia has mated with another pack member, Kinnith, and a human woman named Kati. She’s in the process of planning a big wedding that’s gonna involve the whole pack from what I understand.”
“Your brothers are sharing their mates? Does that mean I’d have to take on one of your other brothers as well as you?” She jumped back when Zack growled and then squealed when he pulled her into his arms.
“I will never, I repeat never, share you with anyone. I want my mate all to myself, and that’s never gonna change.”
Aurelia gazed up
at Zack and breathed in his masculine scent. When his head moved closer, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she closed her eyes and held her breath. When his lips covered hers, she sighed, relaxing fully into his embrace. Something inside her told her this was where she was meant to be. This man would keep her safe, and happy. His tongue teased the seam of her lips until she opened, and then plunged inside, filling her with his taste. When his fingers tightened on her hips, she broke the kiss and pulled away. Breathing raggedly, she laid her forehead on his chest and closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready for things to go any further.
Zack ran his hands up and down her back and sighed. “It’s okay, love. We have plenty of time for this later. Let’s concentrate on getting you safely back to Wyoming and go from there.”
Aurelia nodded and moved to pull back. Zack held her for a moment, and then placed a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s plan on leaving early in the morning. Where can I bunk down for the night?”
“I’m sorry, but I only have the one bed.”
Zack glanced at the two chairs in front of the fireplace. “Don’t worry. I can stretch out between the two of them and be just fine. I’ve slept in much worse places. You go on and get some sleep, and I’ll watch the fire tonight.”
“I’ll have to feed my animals in the morning before we go, but it won’t take long.”
“Okay, we can head to your uncle’s place, pick up Alvara, and then bum a ride to the airport in Cartagena. I checked, and they have flights to Miami several times a day, so travel shouldn’t be a problem. Do you have a passport?”
“Yeah, a passport and other documents, all in a fake name.”
“Alvara told me he got you out of the country, so I assumed he’d gotten you some fake papers. What’s your name for this trip?”
“Carolyn Edwards. They say I come from Georgia.”
“Okay, Carolyn. You go ahead and get some sleep, and I’ll wake you at first light.”
She nodded and moved toward the curtain that blocked off her bed. Before she disappeared behind it, she turned back and smiled. “Good night, Zack.”
The Touch of Her Hands [The Wind River Pack 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 5
