by Abby Weeks
And then it happened, a pulsing torrent of pleasure so overwhelming it was like nothing she’d ever experienced. She didn’t even know such sensations were possible. It was like being connected to the mainline of a power grid. The image of the wolf, its deep eyes, it’s powerful body, it pushed her utterly over the edge.
As the deliciousness of the orgasm overwhelmed every nerve in her body, the wolf completely took over her senses. She could hear the wolf’s howl, see its eyes, smell the acrid musk of its sweat. It was as if it was in the room with her.
Hunter and Heath were still inside her and she convulsed against both of their cocks, back and forward, again and again, as if her body was being tasered with a massive voltage of electricity. She cried out, the orgasm rushing through her, their cocks impaling her from both sides. She was like an animal on a spit. She screamed and the pleasure rushed through her, extending into parts of her nervous system she scarcely knew existed.
When it was finally over, she collapsed. She slumped down onto the mattress, slipping from where she was held in place between the two men’s heaving, panting chests. She thought she’d even lost consciousness for a few seconds, although she couldn’t be certain either way. She panted, gasping for oxygen, and lay on the bed next to the two satiated men. They collapsed down next to her, one on either side. She felt the comfort and security of their two heavy bodies heaving, surrounding her, enveloping her with their warmth.
Before succumbing entirely to her exhaustion, she climbed up out of the mess of limbs and got onto her hands and knees. She leaned down over Hunter’s cock and took it into her mouth.
“Good girl,” Hunter said.
“She learns fast,” Heath agreed.
She sucked Hunter clean and then did the same for Heath. His cock tasted of lotion, but she did her duty and then lay back between them.
Heath pulled the blanket up over them and the three lay there, entwined like lovers, although that wasn’t what they were. Even as she lay their, their sperm dripping out of her pussy and asshole, it was the wolf’s eyes that she thought about as she slipped into the deepest sleep of her life. The howling of the wolf in the distance lulled her off.
If she felt anything, it was only an intense longing for the protection and safety she’d felt when she’d been with the wolf.
*
Chapter 48
WHEN AISHA WOKE UP IN the morning, she was still entwined with Heath and Hunter. Their naked bodies had warmed her in the night. Their arms had protected her. She could see the force of the argument they’d given her in favor of the bargain. Sex for protection—that’s what life seemed to come down to in these parts.
She struggled to get up from the bed—their heavy limbs were all over her—and she got straight into the shower. The hot water calmed and soothed her body. She felt as though she was completely covered in sperm. She could feel it in the crack of her ass, on her thighs, in her pussy and anus. She’d been used completely, possessed totally by the two men.
She washed all trace of it away and then went back into the room to dress. The men were waking up and they watched her dress. She felt embarrassed as their eyes devoured her just as their bodies had the night before. She went back into the bathroom to finish putting on her makeup.
The door was shut but she could hear the men’s words when she stood close to it.
“I never felt anything like her in my life,” Hunter was saying.
Heath laughed. “Welcome to my world, buddy.”
“She’s something.”
“I know it.”
“You’re going to have to keep an eye on her at Dead Wolf. It would be a shame if she got ravaged.”
“That’s not a risk, is it?”
“Everything’s a risk these days. The wolves are so aggressive they come right into town. You saw that shifter last night, in Fairbanks. There was a time when neither a wolf nor a shifter would come within ten miles of Fairbanks.”
“Have women been ravaged in Dead Wolf?”
“Not lately. There’s precious few of them as it is, but they’ve come up with a system to protect them. It works fairly well.”
“Fairly well?”
“You’ll find out. Just keep an eye on your woman when we get up there. You’ll have to watch her or you’ll lose her. I guarantee it. They’ll go wild for a bitch like that when they’re in heat. And if they get her, that’s game over. You’ll find her body in the woods.”
“Not on my watch,” Heath said.
Aisha didn’t understand anything of what the men were saying. Who was ravaging women up there? Wolves? Shifters? The men of the town? Whatever it was, it sounded ominous. Winding up dead in the woods was definitely ominous.
She understood more and more what Hunter and Heath had meant when they said the transaction up here between men and women was sex for protection. It sounded like she would need protecting, constant protecting.
She worried about what she’d have to give up in order to have that protection.
*
Chapter 49
AISHA FINISHED GETTING READY AND walked through the bedroom out the door. She didn’t speak to the men. She didn’t feel like speaking to them. She felt like learning how to defend herself. If the place she was going to was really as dangerous as they made out, she’d need all the help she could get.
She walked through the snow to the land cruiser and put on the coat and boots she’d received from the company depot. They were excellent quality, lined with real fur. Then she took her new rifle out and loaded it from a box of cartridges in the gun rack.
She walked away from the land cruiser toward the center of the parking lot. The lot was almost deserted. There was a metal dumpster at the far end, a few hundred yards away. It was about as far as the wolf had been from Heath the night before. She took careful aim and fired. The clang of the bullet on the metal of the dumpster was very reassuring. She decided to aim at something smaller. Next to the dumpster was a garbage can. That was closer to the size of a target she’d have to shoot at in real life. She aimed again, controlling her breathing, timing her release of the trigger carefully with her breath. She heard the clang again. The garbage can fell over.
She was satisfied. Her shooting was getting better, more confident. It seemed to come naturally to her. If she practiced a little every day she was confident she’d be a reliable marksman if and when she needed to be. She put the gun back in the cruiser and marched across the parking lot to the place where she’d been standing when Heath shot the wolf.
There it was, the wolf’s blood, staining the clean white snow like red wine on a wedding dress. She thought back to the orgasm she’d had the night before. It hadn’t been Heath and Hunter who’d given her that orgasm, it had been the wolf. She felt a connection to it, something that went beyond what she could understand or explain. It was almost spiritual.
*
Chapter 50
THERE WAS STILL NO SIGN of the men so she went to the motel office. It was six in the morning and the office was closed, but she walked through it into the strip club.
“Hello,” she called out.
A woman a few years older than Aisha came out from a door behind the bar.
“Help you, miss?” she said.
Aisha looked her over. She was a pretty girl, maybe a little worn before her years, but Aisha presumed the rough life up in these parts was responsible for that.
“I stayed here last night,” Aisha said.
“I heard you shooting.”
“I’m learning to use a rifle.”
“That’s a smart thing to learn.”
“So I keep hearing.”
“You’re not from these parts?”
Aisha tried to assess the girl. She felt she was friendly, but she’d seen so many things during the past few days that she’d grown more suspicious than she usually would have been.
“I’m from Washington, near Seattle.”
The girl nodded. “You just moving to Fairbanks?”
“Wow. You’re really going for it?”
“That’s the impression I have.”
“That’s remote, girl.”
Aisha nodded.
“That’s even more messed up than Fairbanks.”
Aisha didn’t say anything. She sat down at the bar and leaned on it heavily.
“Did you grow up around here?” Aisha said.
The girl smiled at her. “You’ve got questions, don’t you?”
“So many,” Aisha said.
The girl put on some coffee and brought over two cups and some sugar and cream. “My name’s River,” she said, extending her hand.
Aisha shook it. “I’m Aisha.”
“Pretty name,” River said.
“Yours too.”
“My father grew up on the Yukon River. He named me after it. I always say, at least he didn’t call me Yukon.”
Aisha smiled. “Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
The coffee was ready. River brought the pot over and sat next to Aisha at the bar.
“Tell me,” River said. “What have you seen?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’ve got questions. They don’t come from nowhere.”
Aisha sighed. She didn’t want to sound crazy, or naive, but she needed answers.
“We took a ship here.”
“To Whittier?”
“Yes,” Aisha said, “and there was this man on the ship. He was a large man, dark features, good looking.”
River nodded.
“And he had these strange eyes.”
“Yellow eyes?”
“Like a wolf.”
“I’d tell you who he was, but you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“I’d believe you,” Aisha said.
“Nope. No you wouldn’t. How long have you been in Alaska?”
“Two days.”
“I knew it. You’re too new. You wouldn’t believe me in a million years.”
“Is he a shifter?”
River’s expression changed. She suddenly grew more serious. She looked around the bar. “You’re not as lost as you look, are you?”
“I am,” Aisha said. “I feel like I’m afloat in the middle of the ocean. I feel completely lost.”
“Okay, I’m going to shoot straight with you, but only because you’re headed for Dead Wolf and you’re going to need to know as much as possible.”
“Tell me everything,” Aisha said.
“There are men in these parts with yellow eye—like the one you saw on the boat. People refer to them as shifters. I don’t think that’s how they refer to themselves, and I’d never call them that to their face. They have their own language. Their own words. You’d be wise not to upset them.”
“Okay,” Aisha said, “but who are they?”
“The question isn’t who they are, but what they are.”
Aisha was sure she knew what was coming, but her heart was still pounding. She wouldn’t have believed any of this a week ago.
“They can change, can’t they?”
“Yes they can. They can change into wolves.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“Extremely, especially to women.”
“Why?”
River laughed. “Use your imagination, sweetheart. They’re men who can turn into wolves. Would you want to be on the receiving end of that? They’re brutal. Women turn up dead in the forest all the time, and even though no one likes to talk about it, they all know it’s the shifters. They’re so aggressive, so powerful, a human woman just can’t survive an attack.”
“Do they ever protect women?”
“From what?”
“From men?”
River laughed. “Don’t get caught up in any romantic notions about shifters, honey. Believe me. If you see one, keep your distance. They can get fixated on a girl—it’s their animal instinct to get hung up on one perfect girl—and when they do, that girl’s in trouble. There’s no escape.”
“They rape her?”
“If that’s even what you could call it. Look at it this way—I’m not even sure if they’re men who can turn into wolves, or wolves who can turn into men.”
Aisha was quiet for a moment. She sipped her coffee and stared across the bar at the row of liquor bottles. She wasn’t sure what to believe. There was something about her encounter with the wolf before, something that made her desperately want to believe that the wolf had meant to protect her, not threaten her.
“Do you work here?” she said to River.
“Been here since high school.”
“How is it?”
“It’s not the most glamorous life in the world, I’ll tell you that much. Most of the guys who come through here are pretty rough. They’re loggers, miners, truckers. It’s not really a place where you’d expect to find romance.”
“So you’re not holding your breath waiting for Mr. Right to walk through the door?”
River laughed. “If you see any man who even faintly matches that description around here, you come to me. I call dibs.”
“But not a shifter guy?”
River was stirring her coffee. “Definitely not.” She put down her spoon. “They’re not what you think they are. I can see you going gaga over there, thinking of a handsome wolf-man who’s going to whisk you off your feet and rescue you. That’s not the way it happens. The way it happens is that the police find a mutilated body, naked, in a forest. She’ll be half-eaten by carrion, rotting, forgotten. Don’t let that be you.”
Aisha nodded. “What about the other men in these parts? The normal men?”
“What about them?”
“Well, my fiancé for instance, he’s from around here. The guide who’s taking us up to Dead Wolf, he is too.”
“And they’re not like the men you knew back in Washington?”
“No. Even my fiancé, he’s like a completely different man up here. They told me that up here women need men to protect them. They need men to provide for them. And in return, they do whatever the men want.”
“Don’t tell me that’s not the way it is down in Washington.”
“Not so blatantly. Not the way Heath and Hunter mean it. They made me sleep with them last night. Is that normal?”
“Honey, look around you. Look who you’re asking. I’m a stripper, sweet heart. All I know is favors for money. That’s all I’ve known since I was fifteen.”
“But is it always like that up here?”
“I don’t see anyone lining up trying to get me to do something else with my life,” River said. “Up here, there’s fewer women than men. That means there’s not enough women to go around. There’s not enough women for everyone to settle down, get married, and have a bunch of kids. Do you have any idea what that does to a community?”
“What?”
“It makes the women a commodity. We’re in demand, baby. No one wants to settle down with us. They want to fuck us and they want to sell us. It’s as simple as that. There were seven girls in my senior year of high school. Seven girls. You know where they are now?”
“Where?”
“Three of them work here stripping. Two of them work at another strip club out on Second Avenue.”
“And the other two?”
“Dead. Both found by the police in the forest. They just disappeared one night and were never seen alive again. They showed up months later, animal mutilation all over them.”
Aisha finished her coffee.
“So if you were me?” Aisha said.
“Girl, I’m just being straight up because you’re new here and I think you need it. If I was you, and I had two decent guys willing to look after me, offer me protection, give me somewhere safe to sleep, and all they wanted in return was a little hanky panky, I’d give it to them, and gladly.”
*
Chapter 51
WHEN HEATH AND HUNTER WERE ready, they found Aisha sitting with River at the bar.
&nb
sp; “You ready to go?” Heath said to her from across the room.
“I’ll be right there.”
Heath and Hunter left. Aisha got up from the stool.
“Those are your friends?” River said.
Aisha nodded.
River winked at her. “Let me know if they want to take an extra girl along.”
Aisha smiled. “Thanks for the coffee,” she said.
They fueled up and stopped at a roadside diner before leaving Fairbanks.
“How long till we get to Dead Wolf?” Aisha said over breakfast.
“Five hours at least, if everything goes smoothly. Make sure the rifles are loaded. From here on out, I guess you could say we’re in hostile territory.”
*
Chapter 52
THE ROAD OUT OF FAIRBANKS started out like any other highway, but within a couple of miles it was badly maintained. There were cracks in the road surface, big potholes that Hunter had to drive around to avoid.
“Hit one of them and we’ll need to change a tire,” he said.
Aisha could see why he was being so cautious. The forest seemed to be even darker and denser here than it had been farther south. Perhaps it was because the trees came closer to the side of the road. She could have reached out the window and touched some of the closer branches.
Above them, the sky looked dark and gray and ominous.
“Is that a storm coming in?” she said.
Heath and Hunter had both been watching the sky since they left town.
“I hope not,” Hunter said.
Aisha checked and rechecked that her gun was loaded. She wasn’t sure what she’d do with it if something went wrong, but knowing it was loaded was a comfort to her.
When there was a clearing in the trees, Aisha could see high, jagged mountains in the distance. If she could have used one word to describe the landscape, it would have been menacing.
After a few more miles, the paved road came to a sudden stop. There was a sign by the side of the road issuing a range of warnings to drivers who wished to proceed farther north. It was old and rusty but Aisha was just able to make it out.
