by Michelle Fox
They took the cue, climbing up out of the pool. They were less shy about getting into their trunks, and I averted my eyes for that brief moment.
“Where are you camped?” Colt shouldered his pack. “If you want company, that is.”
“Oh...yeah.” It hadn't even occurred to me there might be more to this than just...this. “Up the path, on the left. You'll see my stuff...” I guess I did want their company.
“We'll walk slow, give you a chance to get dressed.” Colt nodded his head, and he and Jericho skirted the pool, heading toward the woods
“I won't be long.” I stayed in the water, the eddies, and currents matching the swirling emotions inside of me. I waited until they were out of sight, then climbed out of the pool. My shorts were there, but it took a minute to find my t-shirt. I was wet, the clothes were half-dry, and everything was covered in sand. I smiled. Just what you'd expect on a camping trip.
I grabbed my stuff, and headed up the trail. I could hear them talking up ahead, but I didn't make the effort to catch up. It was nice knowing I had company, even though it took away the me-in-the-wilderness-alone theme to the weekend. But what the hell, maybe this was what fate had set up for me. Maybe this was what I needed.
As far as testing my limits and my boundaries went, I was chalking up new experiences, right and left. First sex with a stranger, then sex with another...and then both at once.
What the hell was I doing?
But I'd thrown judgment out the window, self and otherwise. This was my weekend, and I was going to follow wherever this oddball path took me. At the moment, that path seemed to be dragging me through a whirlwind of crazy sexual adventure.
Chapter Four
The sun was almost down by the time we reached my little campsite, if an abandoned tent, and a lone pack could be called a campsite. It was much darker beneath the canopy of trees. The pines added a green bulk that seemed to soak up the last of the sunlight. We all had flashlights, and Colt and Jericho made a complete circle of the area. I stood in the middle, a little bemused. I'd never seen anyone do that before, except in rattlesnake country. But we didn't have rattlesnakes here. I chalked it up to idiosyncratic camper superstitions.
“Nice tent. You want some help setting it up?” Colt dropped his pack beside the pile of nylon and fiberglass, picking up the pieces I'd left in a heap.
“Help yourself. It was what drove me down to the springs. I'd given up trying to puzzle it out.” I picked up my pack, ferreting out matches and my fire starter kit. “I'll get the fire going...”
But Jericho already had a tiny flame cradled in a bunch of pine needles, and I watched as he tenderly set it among a pile of tinder, carefully feeding it small twigs, the flame growing quickly. He glanced up, catching my gaze, grinning at me over the flickering flames.
“I got a merit badge in camping when I was a kid.”
“I see.” I dropped the stuff back into my pack. “Is there anything you guys can't do?”
“Not if it involves living off the land.” Colt stepped away from the tent. It seemed like it had materialized out of nowhere. “We've been roughing it in some way since we were kids. Both of us grew up near here, spent most of our time messing around in the woods.”
“Or getting into trouble.” Jericho added a larger branch to the fire. The flames licked around it, turning blue and yellow. Jericho dropped to the ground, leaning his back against the log. He gave me an encouraging smile...hell, he gave me a smile that could have lit a fire without matches. But I stood for a moment, debating where to sit. Suddenly I was shy, like I was on a blind date, not sitting around the fire with two guys I'd just had sex with in the hot springs. Two guys who certainly had an affect on me, and my libido. I perched primly on the log.
“I'll round up some more firewood.” I just caught a glimpse of Colt as he disappeared silently into the woods. Jericho tugged his pack closer, pulling out a thermos. After a minute he handed me a metal cup. “Here. Brought enough for all of us.”
I took an experimental sniff, then a sip. It was bourbon, I thought. Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it was the strongest thing I'd ever tasted.
Jericho stretched his legs out toward the fire. We watched the flames for a minute. Somewhere in the woods a night bird called, its mate answering. Then it went still, and the only sounds were that of the crackling fire. Jericho stretched again, looking up at me over his shoulder.
“What's your game, Red? You're a good girl.... you're not someone who sleeps around. So, why the sudden ménage in the hot springs? Feel like taking a walk on the wild side?”
The fire crackled, sparks rising against the backdrop of the dark trees. Above that was the deeper black of the sky, brilliant stars pinpricks in the dark. The fire caught Jericho's eyes, and for a startling moment I swore they glinted red. I blinked, and blinked again. But the moment was gone.
“I don't...I'm not.” I shifted on the log, took another sip of bourbon. It burned like proverbial fire. I swallowed hard, tried not to cough, and wasn't entirely successful. The last thing I wanted to look like was a lightweight in front of these guys. There was something about them that brought out my competitive edge, among other feelings, or urges, or desires. I shrugged, trying for nonchalance. Like this is normal for me: sex in the afternoon; drinking the hard stuff at night.
“Let's say I stepped out of my life for the weekend.” I looked down at Jericho, but he was staring into the fire, for which I was profoundly grateful. I wasn't sure I could stand that piercing gaze at the moment. “I needed a change, needed to do some thinking.”
“I'm all for getting away from it all, looking inward, doing a bit of soul searching. And for you, if that means a weekend fling, so be it.” He took a swallow of his drink. “Anything I can do to help you...” He glanced behind me. I turned to see Colt materialize from the forest carrying an armful of firewood. “Anything we can do to help, just let us know.”
“Help who?” Colt dropped the wood, grabbed a branch and added it to the fire.
“Red. She's on a voyage of self-discovery. I told her we're here for her.”
Colt crouched in the glow of the fire, poking it with a stick. The fire roared up briefly, then settled back. I caught the smile on his face, and was eternally grateful for the darkness around us, and that if either of them noticed my blush, they'd think it was a rosy glow from the fire, or the fire of the bourbon. Both of them had already gone a long way to helping me do whatever it was I'd come here to do.
“I don't want to pry, but there must have been something that prompted this weekend away. Care to share?”
I took another sip of bourbon. It was kind of growing on me, the warmth sliding through my body. The last little bit of shyness melted away. There was no reason not to tell these guys the reasons I was here; chances were pretty good I'd never see them after this weekend. Might as well get the truth out there, get it out of my system.
“A couple of months ago my boyfriend...my fiancé, actually, cheated on me. He'd started dating my college roommate...” I took another shot of liquid courage. “He wanted an open relationship; I wanted nothing to do with him.”
“So you took to the wilderness to clear your head?” Colt nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. Hard to think when you're surrounded by reminders of the guy.”
“Exactly.” I waved my arm, intending to point at Colt, but managed only to slosh a bit of bourbon on the ground. Jericho reached up, gently taking the cup out of my hand.
“Maybe you've had enough for now.”
“Oh...sorry. I've never been good at holding my liquor.” The warmth in me was making the world a little fuzzy around the edges. It was a pleasant fuzziness. “And I had some wine before...”
Jericho laughed, a nice sound. I could get used to that sound. “It's okay. You just do what you need to. We'll watch out for the big bad wolf, make sure you're safe while you sort out your life.”
“Oh, hey...that reminds me. Did you guys see a wolf today? A big black wolf...don't
know if it was bad...” I reached behind the log, digging in my pack for my phone. “Here...I took pictures.” I flipped open the phone, scrolling to the shots of the wolf on the path. I leaned forward and held it out so the guys could see it.
“See?” I flipped through the photos. The first one was clear. The rest wouldn't win me any awards. “He sat when I asked him to, but I didn't get a picture of that. I thought he might have been the ranger's dog, but the guy said...”
I got the feeling no one was listening to me. I glanced at Colt, then to Jericho. Neither were looking at me or the phone. They were looking at each other, and the look they exchanged was one I couldn't miss, even in my happy state. Something was wrong, very wrong.
“You did see it, right?” I slumped on the log, then slid down onto the ground between Jericho and Colt. “I think the ranger thought I was crazy.”
“Ranger?” Jericho's voice had an edge to it. “What ranger?”
Colt coughed, then turned away as he fumbled for...something. “Yeah, Jericho, there was a ranger...” His voice was muffled.
I turned to Colt. “Were you on the path ahead of me? You must have been, if you saw him, and then showed up at the springs when you did. Or did you say you came from the other way?” Wine, bourbon, and the afterglow of sex had muddled my recollection of what he'd said when we first met.
“Yeah, I saw the wolf.” Colt sat up, absently poking the fire. “And I saw the ranger.”
Jericho tensed beside me, leaning forward to look past me at Colt. “Were you going to tell me? Or just wait till he showed up here? What the hell were you thinking? Or you weren't thinking, were you?”
I sat perfectly still between the two of them, confused, the fuzzy feeling fading. The air was charged with tension, everything changing. I wasn't exactly scared, but I was no longer drifting in a comforting haze of alcohol and sex.
“What did I say? Did I say something wrong?”
The tension held for a moment, then shifted. Whatever was going on between them, they'd let it go, at least a little. Jericho finally stood up, making a point of stretching, even though I knew he was far from relaxed.
“You're fine, Red. This is between Colt and me. Nothing to do with you.”
“You're not going to fight or anything, are you?”
Jericho moved around the fire, heading for the trees. “No. Just guys being guys. No fighting. I'm going for more firewood.”
I relaxed bit by bit. Maybe in my muddled state I'd misunderstood whatever had just happened.
“So, you did see the wolf? Big, black...blue eyes...” I looked into Colt's blue eyes, at his dark hair. It had dried now, and it curled around his shoulders. In the light of the fire it looked tipped with deep red. But in the sun...Would it be tipped with silver?
Colt turned to me. “Big black wolf. Yeah, I think I've seen him before.”
I stared at him, almost unable to look away. Blue eyes, black hair...
“You've heard the stories, Red? The legend of Black Wolf Mountain...the rest of it, the territory to the north, all the wild stories.”
I nodded, not looking away, unable to even if I wanted. But I didn't want to look away. It felt like I could look into those eyes for a long time...forever. If only.
“So do you believe them, the stories you heard around the campfire?” Colt reached out, winding a strand of hair through his finger, tugging lightly. “You know, I could really fall in love with this hair.”
“Obsessed much?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. Is that a problem?”
I shook my head, leaning toward Colt, following my strand of hair. His gaze slid down to my lips, a look so sexy I almost felt the caress of him against me. Swoon was never a word I'd have used to describe how I felt with a guy, before this. I closed my eyes, swooning. But his words tugged at me, and I stopped leaning forward, stopped swooning. He tugged on my hair, but I pulled back, the strand held taut between us. I opened my eyes.
“Wait...stop distracting me. You asked if I believed in the stories. What stories?”
“Red...Risha...there's something you should probably know about me, and Jericho. Something that might change how you think about us.”
“Oh. Okay.” Married? Girlfriends? I thought we covered all that.
He let go of my hair, watching it as it fell against my shoulder. “It's not what you think...none of that.”
The instant his eyes met mine I knew it, in my heart, in my soul, in every cell in my body. I went cold, then hot, then felt that swooning feeling again. Only it was more sickening than sexy this time around.
“You're the wolf.”
He didn't answer, didn't have to. It was written clear on his face. My heart took off like a racehorse out of the gate, and I dug my fingers into the sandy dirt under my hands. This was worse than a girlfriend, or a wife. Oh my fucking God.
“It's okay, Red. Really. I'm not the big bad wolf of legend. Neither is Jericho.”
That snapped me out of wherever my head had gone. “Jericho? He's a...thing like you?”
“Don't say it like that. We're not things.” He actually sounded hurt. And I actually felt bad for...what? Insulting his heritage?
“Then what are you?”
“Right now, I'm just a guy. Like I was before, at the springs. Just a guy sitting around the fire, enjoying your company.”
“Then who or what were you before? On the trail?”
“That was also me. Only in wolf form. We call ourselves shifters. We can change shape. And in our case, it's from human to wolf, and back.”
“Are you serious? This sounds crazy.” I could barely breathe, my head swirling in colors of black and grey, and I felt as though I might almost pass out.
I looked closely at Colt, at the face of the man who I'd had sex with just a few hours earlier. I thought having sex with a stranger was way outside my comfort zone, but what he'd just told me pretty much blew all that right out of the water. My instincts kicked in, and I felt just like I did on the path. The urge to run was almost overwhelming. He was either telling the truth, or he was completely and absolutely insane. At the moment, either or both was just as chilling to think about.
But this wasn't the wolf...or it was. But it was also Colt. And I happened to like Colt. I liked Colt very much. It was obvious the dynamic between us had changed; the light-hearted banter was gone. The sexual tension was still there, but it was overlaid with something a lot like fear.
“Okay. So let's say I can suspend disbelief long enough. You're a wolf in human clothing?”
He cracked half a smile. “You could say that. It's a little more complicated. There's a history with Jericho and me, and a back story that's a bit long in the tooth.” His smile widened. “Sorry. Couldn't resist the pun.”
I managed something of a smile, I think. I wasn't sure. Most of me felt numb. “Why were you a wolf when I saw you?”
“I wasn't sure who you were yet. Friend or foe. When I'm in wolf form, I see things differently. Literally. My senses are heightened—smell, hearing, sight. I get a better view of who I'm looking at. A more accurate view, in most cases.”
Some of the tension seeped out of me, despite hearing Colt explain he was a wolf. Listening to him, hearing his voice, the calm way he was talking to me, somehow made it seem okay. Maybe even believable. Somehow, some way.
“You're hypnotizing me, aren't you?” I made the effort to shift my gaze to the fire. “That's a thing you can do, right? I watch television, you know. I know how this works.”
He laughed softly. “Red, if I was into mind control, my life would be a whole hell of a lot easier. And television usually gets it wrong. Vampires don't sparkle; shifters don't use mind control. At least not all the time.” He stretched his arms over his head. “Believe me, life as a shifter isn't easy. This has been one of the better days of late.”
“Oh.” I wasn't sure if that included me, or something else. My mind was spinning, too many questions piling up, fighting to be the first one asked. But be
fore I could pick the front-runner, Colt stood up.
“Something's wrong. Jericho should be back by now.”
Bewildered, I scrambled to my feet, tripping over the little pile of firewood. Colt was already on the other side of the fire, heading toward the gap where Jericho had gone.
“What do I do?”
“Stay here.” Colt turned back, face set in rigid lines. For a moment the wolf played over his face, the eyes glowing in the light of the fire, his hair catching the slight breeze.
“But what...”
A howl cut through the soft night air. The sound chilled me to the bone. I stepped backward, tripped over the big log, landing hard on my ass, the wind knocked out of me. Colt stopped, half turned toward me, half turned toward the forest. If he saw what was coming out of the forest almost on top of him, he never flinched.
All I saw was a ball of gray fur wrapped around what looked like a big rag doll. I screamed and struggled to sit up, to catch my breath, to get my bearings. For a moment everything was obscured by the fire, the figures blurred, red-tinged. I finally got to my feet, and what I saw wasn't any less chilling from that vantage point.
The figures separated, the rag doll taking the shape of the nameless ranger. The gray fur resolved into another wolf. From the way Colt swung around, teeth bared at the ranger, eyes narrowed, I knew this wolf wasn't just any wolf. This was Jericho.
The ranger and Jericho faced off briefly on either side of the fire. Jericho snarled, exposing brilliant white fangs, advancing stiff-legged around the flames. The ranger crouched, moving in the opposite direction, keeping the fire between them. There were rips and tears in his khaki uniform, some of them edged with blood. Colt looked strangely hesitant, poised halfway between Jericho, the ranger, and me.
I realized, a split second too late that the ranger and I were on a collision course. He realized it a split second before I did. I went left, he went right, but I couldn’t avoid him. He slung an arm around my neck, pulling me against him.
