Running Free (Northern Shifters)

by Jorrie Spencer

  “Zach,” she hissed, following him. She was not going to be dismissed. “I know what you are. You had better listen to me. I am not going away.”

  He paused for a microsecond before unlocking and opening his door, then he slammed it shut and threw the bolt.

  Crap. What the fuck was this about? One minute she asks if he even knows Hambly, the next she knows what he is. Did that make sense? His mind raced, and before he knew it he was calling Sally.

  “Hello?”

  “I need your help.” Unfortunate words, not how he wanted to romance her, but there it was. “Your advice,” he amended, hoping he sounded a little less desperate.

  “Of course,” Sally said without hesitation, and knowing someone had his back made him feel better. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he feared, though he wasn’t sure what exactly he feared. He looked out the front window to see Dana remained in the driveway.

  “Zach,” Sally demanded, tone sharp. “What is going on?”

  “Dana Whitmore is in front of my house.”

  “What is she doing?”

  “Standing in my driveway. Like she doesn’t plan to go away.”

  “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know, but she told me she knows what I am, like a kind of warning. How would she know I’m a horse?”

  “I’m coming right over. Don’t let her in before I get there.” Sally hung up. As Zach put down his phone, he felt relief and a weird kind of humor. It wasn’t that Dana could hurt him physically. She couldn’t. However, he didn’t know what the hell to do with this woman, what to say, or how to find out what she could or could not do to him and Storm.

  There was too much he didn’t know. He loathed his own ignorance.

  He looked out the window one more time to have Dana stare back at him, arms crossed, chin jutted out.

  Sally ran. She didn’t care if she looked unusual racing through the suburban streets to reach Zach.

  She was angry and only slowed down once she hit his driveway.

  “Hey,” she said to draw the attention of the woman standing beside her car, staring at Zach’s front door.

  The woman whipped around.

  “Dana, right?”

  “Excuse me?” Her tone went frosty. “Can I help you?”

  “Actually, I want to help you.” Sally made her tone threatening as she marched right up into Dana Whitmore’s face and breathed in.

  Dana backed up, intimidated, and yet her lip curled. “Wolf.” It was almost a sneer.

  Sally felt her eyebrows lift. This woman was acquainted with wolves if she knew enough to observe this. Not that Sally had been subtle.

  “How do you want to help me?” demanded Dana.

  “I want to help you get the fuck out of here.” Jesus, she was mad—downright territorial—which should have alarmed her. Instead, she was satisfied. Even smug. Her wolf was ready to shake this bitch up, but Sally had enough self-control not to make this physical. Even if this was Zach’s blackmailer.

  The woman straightened her shoulders, ready to make a stand. “If you get me in touch with Stewart Hambly, I’ll do whatever you want.”

  That gave Sally—and her wolf—pause, and the situation suddenly got very complicated. Because, Christ, what an offer. What a thing to say. Her anger ebbed as she perceived that Dana’s actions were fueled by a kind of greedy desperation. She wanted something, but she was frightened too. Still, no way in hell was Dana going to learn Zach had killed Hambly. “I can’t do that. I’ve never met a Stewart Hambly.”

  “You wolves all know each other,” Dana stated.

  The front door opened then, and Zach walked out. He came over and put an arm around Sally’s shoulders.

  She loved it, this display of affection, this statement they were together, and this time she leaned right into him.

  “Okay, got it. You’re a couple.” Dana’s bravado sounded off-kilter.

  Sally glanced up at Zach. “She thinks we know a Stewart Hambly, but I’ve disabused her of that notion.”

  “I don’t think,” Dana said in a weird, angry panic. “I fucking know. He told me about Zach and Storm. He had an eye on them. Why would he if they weren’t wolves?”

  Beside her, Zach stiffened, and while Sally’s first instinct was to go after Dana verbally, she attempted a more cool-headed approach. “Okay, Dana, why do you need to get in contact with this man who you believe to be a wolf?”

  Dana looked to Sally then Zach and back at Sally again, trying to figure out, perhaps, who was more likely to help her. “Stewart promised me…” She couldn’t seem to articulate the promise.

  Sally started feeling uncomfortable. She didn’t want to know anything more. She wanted to send Dana on her way and never see the woman again. But if Stewart had caused more problems, well, they needed to know. Wolf Town needed to know.

  She asked, “What did he promise you, Dana?”

  She folded in on herself a little. “He promised me he’d keep the other wolf away from me and my daughter.”

  Fuck. Sally closed her eyes. They’d known there were others with Hambly, but this was confirmation. “What other wolf?”

  “I don’t know his name!”

  “Why do you think going after Zach is a good idea?”

  Dana shrugged defiantly.

  “If you want my help—” warned Sally.

  “I want his help!” Dana pointed at Zach, who looked alarmed by the jabbing finger. “Even if you don’t act at all like the wolves I know. You’re male and tall.”

  Sally dug her elbow into Zach’s side so he wouldn’t respond. There was no sense revealing Zach’s real nature. The fewer people who knew about horses the better.

  “The only ones who can keep wolves away are other wolves,” Dana continued grimly. “Law enforcement is useless. Besides, my daughter might have the werewolf gene, and I don’t want it recorded anywhere. I know there are prejudices about that.”

  Sally wasn’t convinced the prejudice should be Dana’s primary worry this month, if she had a stalker wolf and a daughter who could bear wolf pups.

  “And Zach is half-decent, which is also rare for a wolf,” Dana concluded sullenly.

  A year ago, Sally believed the same thing, but now she murmured, “Not entirely rare.”

  Dana’s eyes lit up. “Can you hook me up with someone else? Someone who won’t mind a kid around.”

  Clearly Sally didn’t keep her emotions off her face, because Dana snapped, “Don’t look appalled. You know this is how it goes with wolf groupies. Yes, I made some choices, but I have a daughter now.” Her voice was rising, and Sally felt out of her depth. She needed to talk to Rory and Angus.

  “Are you in danger right this minute?” Sally asked.

  “No. I mean I don’t think so. He just left. Said he’d be gone for a few days but back by the next full moon.”

  “Who?” asked Zach.

  “He wouldn’t tell me his name. He liked being mysterious.” The words dripped with derision. Dana wasn’t fond of the anonymous wolf.

  Sally sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Let me make a phone call.”

  “What do you think he wants?” Angus asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “We have to find him.” Angus’s statement allowed Sally to breathe a little more easily. When Angus wanted something done, it happened.

  “Yes,” Sally agreed.

  “We have to stake out Dana’s house.”

  “All right. Use someone who’s not going to sleep with her. She’s a werewolf groupie but a little traumatized by either Stewart or Mr. John Doe or both.”

  “Rory will be impervious to her charms,” Angus said dryly.

  When she hung up, she looked over at Zach.

  “You know,” he said from the other side of the kitchen. “This is probably quite minor, but I still can’t get over her thinking I’m a wolf.”

  “You don’t like the idea of being thought one of us?”

  His mouth quirked. “You wolves are
growing on me. Especially you.” His gaze shifted from amused to something more heated. “Why do you run hot and cold on me? I thought it was because you didn’t want to get involved further, but you seemed quite involved out there on the driveway.”

  “Oh, Zach.” At this point she was helpless to resist him.

  He eyed her. “When you say my name, I love it, but the ‘oh’ before means you’re worried about something, and when you’re worried, you run cold.”

  She actually felt hot, possessive, and now, with his dark eyes on hers, aroused. Yet to explain everything… She was going to trip over the words. Maybe it was time to try anyway. “You run, not me,” she said for no reason whatsoever. An awkward change of subject.

  “I run,” he agreed. “But not from you.” He strode across the kitchen towards her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “There’s something you don’t understand,” she blurted, and he was stopped. Not by her words but by the hand she was holding up.

  “There’s a lot I don’t understand.” If she was going to wait until he understood everything that went on around them, well, she’d be waiting a very long time.

  Her gaze intensified, as if whatever she wanted to tell him could be communicated with her expressive gray eyes. He took her hand and held it to his heart. Let her feel how she affected him.

  “My wolf wants to be mated to you.” She rushed the words out and made them sound like a dire warning.

  He was missing something. Again. “That’s good, right?”

  “Depends,” she hedged.

  On what? he thought to ask, but tried another tack instead. “Your wolf wants us to be mates but…” He sorted through the problem and how she was stating it. “But not you?” he guessed.

  She shook her head, almost irritated, and pulled away from him. “She’s me, a part of me. It’s what I want too. Even if we’re not always in sync.”

  Apart from wrangling over which form, horse or human, to take—which wasn’t minor, he realized—he didn’t perceive his horse as being out of sync with his human side. Maybe it was somehow part of being feral for so long.

  “This is why Trey disapproves of me,” she explained. “Wolves are too intense when they want to mate and put too much pressure on the object of their affection.”

  He smiled. He couldn’t help it. “I’m the object of your affection?”

  “Of course you are.” She sounded a little huffy. Then she waved a hand. “I know, I know. I’ve been sending mixed signals, if only for your sake.”

  “Mixed signals were supposed to help me?” he asked, incredulous.

  “No. But because you have so much going on in your life right now, I’ve been trying not to barge into it—at least any more than I already have—and make a mess.”

  He stepped towards her. She wasn’t skittish, but she was trying to take some ridiculous high road which would do no good for either of them. “I want you in my life. I haven’t wanted anyone else in my life for a long time, but now there’s you and Storm.”

  He bent and kissed her mouth, a brief caress, because she held herself apart from him.

  “Zach,” she said. “You must know I want you.”

  He did know. The benefit of being a shifter, with senses on high alert.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m the first female shifter you’ve met, that you remember.”

  “So?” He didn’t want to talk about his past, he just wanted to fuck, to make love, and everything in-between. But he sensed she wouldn’t let this go. The only way he was going to get her into bed was if he kept talking, and talking truth.

  “You would never betray me.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t.” She frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  He liked being able to know it, deep in his bones. He couldn’t tell her why. The reason was lost.

  Sally eyed him. “I’ve been chased a fair amount. By wolves who were delighted to have found a female who can have wolf babies. It’s been wonderful to be with you, where that’s the last thing on your mind.”

  “Babies?” He felt aghast. He didn’t think he had room for another responsibility right this moment. Was she trying to tell him…?

  She laughed then. “Oh, Zach, your face. Oh my God.”

  “You said you can’t, I mean you’re—”

  “The wolves don’t always let me impart this information to them, or they think they can wait out my infertility since the operations can get healed back to square one.”

  He became somber then. The conversation was getting away from him, when he wanted to bring it back towards something better, something that would seduce her. Seduction wasn’t his strong suit, clearly.

  “All right,” she said.

  He raised an eyebrow in question, and she came to him, wrapping her strong, warm body around him. He curled a palm against her neck, stroked a thumb down to rest on the pulse point there. “Let’s finish talking in bed,” he suggested. A bed would make everything easier, he was sure of it.

  She rose up to meet him, and they kissed, her body twining around his, her taste overwhelming him. He lifted her, and she held on tight, the kiss deepening. It was a heady feeling. That he could hold her, have her in his arms.

  She wanted to mate with him.

  Abruptly she pulled back, smiling. “What?”

  “I want you to want me.”

  Her smile faded a little.

  “It’s not just intense for you, Sally, I promise. We’re both in this.”

  She kissed his neck, his cheek, licked his skin, while he turned and strode to the stairs. He wanted the bedroom and her beneath him. He wanted them laid out together, the bodies striving towards each other.

  He wanted a connection when he’d had so little connection to anything for so many years.

  Since he couldn’t bring himself to throw her down on the bed, didn’t want the separation just now, he sat on the bed and whispered against her mouth: “Mate.”

  They’d been kissing, again, but she pulled back. She wore a look of intense pleasure. “It makes you happy, to know that’s how I think of you?”

  “It really does.” He rolled them, and he could stare down. She was gorgeous beneath him, gray eyes dark with arousal, the iris a steel thin rim around her pupil, cheeks flushed, lips not quite bruised by kissing. “Sally.”

  “I wanted to tear Dana to pieces,” she blurted out. “I’m the jealous type.”

  He stroked her face. “Don’t tear her to pieces. There’s nothing to be jealous of.”

  “I don’t share,” she warned.

  “Share what?” He thought of the bed.

  “You.”

  He frowned. “With who?”

  “God. Never mind.” She pulled him down for another kiss, undulating against him at the same time.

  Suddenly he wanted their clothes off. He tried for it without breaking the contact, but instead of clothes coming off, they got into a wrestling match of sorts, with her trying to roll them over so she was on top.

  He let her win, let her take off his sweats and tee.

  “You are so gorgeous, Zach. I can’t tell you.”

  He shook his head, not sure exactly why, a kind of confusion riding him, so he concentrated on releasing her breasts from the bra that contained them. Then he pulled one perfect nipple into his mouth.

  The noise she made inflamed him, and she arched back against his hand. “Damn, you just do it for me. I don’t normally talk so much. I normally want it done, you know?”

  He didn’t know, but he attended to the other perfect breast. As long as he paid attention to these breasts he wouldn’t rush forward to the finish line. He could draw this out, make it last. God knows when they’d get together again.

  But when he released her nipple, she grabbed hold of his shoulders and levered herself up so he sat at her entrance. He hesitated, and she gave a growl of frustration before pushing down, the head of his cock entering her.

  He couldn’t resist. He slid home, and he migh
t have said her name. Thought fled once more. There was only a physical force between them as they moved together, their tension riding high and higher. Every atom in his body focused on the way they were meant to be together, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.

  So much for not rushing. He simply couldn’t stop, had to claim her, had to come inside her.

  He broke first, but before he could regret that he hadn’t managed to wait for her—again—she seized up beneath him, gasping as she climaxed in his wake.

  They held each other in the aftermath, him stroking hair away from her forehead. This time he could enjoy watching her come back to herself while feeling his own body’s wave of pleasure retreat and be replaced by such a strong emotion he could not define it.

  I want you, he thought to say, but he’d just had her, and it didn’t encompass all he meant. I’m with you, but it only stated the obvious when what he felt was so much more.

  “Zach,” she said softly. “When you look at me like that, I just melt.”

  He smiled.

  In the week that followed, they met to make love during the day when Storm was at school, either at his place or hers, Rory having decamped to Dana’s for her and her daughter’s protection.

  They’d been introduced, Zach and Rory, and despite some mild jealousy on Zach’s part, the men had gotten on all right. Perhaps because it was quite clear Sally and Rory’s relationship was one of total sexual disinterest.

  Storm was a little more tricky to manage as he figured out Sally visited when he wasn’t home and wanted to know why. So she came over Thursday afternoon after bumping one of her lessons, and walked to school with Zach to pick him up. They didn’t want to make secrets around this, even if Storm wasn’t yet to know how involved they’d become.

  Since Sally was in this for good and she was in this deep, she no longer fussed about flitting in and out of Storm’s life. She wanted to build a relationship with the child—to the extent they played four games of Trouble and watched Storm’s favorite video before supper. Storm was mad about horses, she discovered, and she found it endearing.

  Rory came over for supper that night sans Dana who had decamped to another city, at least till the full moon was over. He charmed both Storm and Zach. In part by describing a childhood which wasn’t wholly different than Storm’s—abandoned by his biological parents and taken in by Angus who raised him. Rory’s enthusiasm for his childhood made everyone happy, including Sally. She believed in happy endings for young children. She especially believed in them for Storm and Zach. Maybe even herself. She had to work on not feeling giddy all the time, when there was the vague yet definite danger of Hambly’s associate in the area.