Sherry's Wolf (After the Crash #3.5)

by Maddy Barone

  After spending a watery hour cleaning the kitchen, Sherry girded her loins to go find Stag. She had one more hurdle to get over, and that was a gray-furred, four-legged one.

  * * *

  Stag pulled off the pants he’d put on for bed last night and let his wolf out. His mate was inside crying and he didn’t know why. She’d told him to leave, so he couldn‘t even try to comfort her. The wolf didn’t understand why they couldn’t go in and put their head on her lap and whine in sympathy. Stag tried to project soothing thoughts and the freedom of a run in the snow. The wolf was reluctant until Stag imagined that they wouldn’t be running just for fun, but to ensure that no enemies were near to try to steal their mate. Roused to a welcome duty, the wolf settled into a lope.

  A half hour of steady running brought the scent of a friend. Another wolf came out of a band of trees and turned into Snake, one of Taye’s Pack. Stag pushed his wolf back so he could change too. The two men greeted each other with hearty fists thumped into each other’s backs.

  “How is it going with your mate?” Snake asked eagerly.

  “I don’t know,” Stag answered morosely. “When I left she was crying.”

  “Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good. What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I just told her I loved her. Then she started to cry and told me she wanted to be alone.”

  Both of them sniffed the breeze and turned to see another wolf trot to them. Taye transformed and pounded Stag on the back.

  “How’s the courting going?” he asked.

  “Not good,” Snake answered for him. “Stag made his mate cry and she told him to get out.”

  Taye’s eyebrows rose under his ragged bangs. “Did you tie her to the bed?”

  “Of course not!”

  Snake nodded his head wisely. “Maybe that’s the problem? You were supposed to tie her to the bed —”

  “No,” Stag and Taye shouted together.

  “At least, not unless she wants you to,” Taye amended, his dimple flirting with his smile.

  “I really doubt she wants me to do that,” Stag said grimly. Then he shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know why she’s crying. I thought we were having a nice conversation. I told her that I loved her. She tried to hide it, but she was starting to cry. What did I do?”

  Taye bumped shoulders with Stag in sympathy. “Women are like that, sometimes. For some reason that no man will ever understand, they just need to cry every now and then. It tortures our wolves, but it’s best to just let ‘em do it. With Carla, I’ve learned to either go away until she’s done, or just let her cry on me. She doesn’t usually need me to say much, but there’s times when she just wants me to listen. The hard part is knowing when she wants me to go and when she wants me to stay. I ask, but,” Taye shrugged, “I don’t think she knows which she wants, either, most of the time.”

  Stag sighed. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. A faint call lifted his head. The other two men also heard it. Their faces sharpened when they heard a distant voice calling Stag’s name.

  “Sherry!” he gasped.

  “She’s not screaming,” Taye soothed him.

  But she was calling for him. Stag let his wolf out to run back to the cabin. The wolf was faster, and, goaded by fear for Sherry, he fairly flew over the snow. Taye and Snake followed, also in wolf form. Sherry was standing by the door, bundled in her coat, looked around and calling his name. Her face was startled when she saw three wolves running for her. She visibly had to steel herself to stand still instead of running back into the cabin. Pride welled in Stag. She had come a long way in three months.

  He let his wolf sniff at her, and once he was assured that Sherry was neither hurt nor frightened, the wolf faded back. In man form, Stag grabbed her arms.

  “Are you okay?”

  Her beautiful dark eyes were still swollen with tears. They opened wide when she saw Snake and Taye change. She jerked her eyes back to his face. “Yes, I’m fine. I wanted to talk … I mean we didn’t finish our talk about your wolf. I, um, didn’t know we had company.”

  Taye smiled. “We’re not staying. Me and Snake were running patrol when we saw Stag. While we were talking, we heard you call. We just wanted to be sure you were alright.”

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  The Alpha saw her shiver. “You should go inside, Sherry,” he chided her. “It’s too cold out here for you.”

  “Bye,” said Snake brightly.

  Snake and Taye let their wolves back out and trotted away. Sherry waved uncertainly at their furry backs before she opened the cabin door. “Are you coming in, Stag?”

  “Sure. I’ll put my pants on. Be there in a second.”

  Even a wolf would shiver when pulling snowy pants over his sensitive bits. Stag growled at himself for forgetting to put the pants somewhere out of the snow and followed his mate back into the cabin. Sherry had hung her coat up and was standing nervously at the table. Stag grabbed both chairs and put them in front of the fire.

  “It’s warmer over here, Sherry. Come sit down.” He waited until she had settled herself. “I’m sorry I made you cry,” he apologized tentatively. “I never meant to.”

  She sat. “I know, Stag,” she said softly, staring into the yellow flames wavering in the grate. “It wasn’t really you. It was …” She trailed off, slim straight brows pulled together in thought. “It was what you said and how it made me feel.” She flicked a hesitant half-smile his way. “Jodi and Dixie have been trying to teach me to pay attention to my feelings. Have you ever wanted something all your life, wanted it so bad that you would do anything to have it? But every time you grabbed for it, it turned out to be a fake and bit you on the ass? And then, one day, someone held it out for you to take. But you were afraid to take it because it was too easy. You thought it would turn and bite you too.”

  He thought he understood what she was trying to say. His mate. He had always wanted a mate. But he wasn’t afraid of it, only of losing her. “What if it doesn’t bite you? What if this time it truly is the one thing you want? Isn’t that worth taking a risk for?

  After a quiet minute she nodded. “Maybe it is. But leaps of faith are scary.”

  Stag dared to take one of her slender hands into his and squeezed it gently. “I’ll catch you,” he promised fervently. “My wolf will never let me to fail you.”

  Her delicate jaw tightened. For a minute her hand was limp in his. Then she grasped his hand in a firm grip.

  “Yeah, that’s the next thing on the agenda. We need to talk about your wolf, Stag.” She was silent a second, gathering her thoughts. “Where I come from we don’t have wolves like you. And you know what bugs me the most about it?”She jerked her hand free and her voice sharpened. “It’s this mystical mumbo-jumbo Bam!-you-are-my-one-true-mate-and-neither-of-us-has-a-choice crap. That sucks, alright? I don’t believe in magic. And it’s totally not fair that I don’t have a choice.”

  He waited to be sure she was finished. “Sherry, you do have a choice. I’m the one that doesn’t have a choice. For me, it’s you or no one. My wolf won’t let me have anyone else. But you can tell me no.”

  “Can I?” She stared into the fire, arms wrapped around herself. “Doesn’t seem like it, especially considering you kidnapped me to force me to stay here with you for a week.”

  Oh. He forced down the urge to squirm. She had a point. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it that way.” It was a good thing Taye had left or he might have punched him. But he couldn’t blame Taye. It was his own fault that he let his impatience get the better of him. “I thought it was a good idea for us to be alone so we could talk and get to know one another.”

  She surprised him by saying, “It was a good idea. I just wish we had talked about it first so I could have agreed. Not that I would have,” she admitted reluctantly. “But I’ve learned a ton about you in just the short time we’ve been here.” She’d been picking at her thumbnail, but now she looked at him. “I need to meet your wolf. Will you chang
e for me?”

  Inside, Stag’s wolf sat up with excitement. Stag forced his own excitement down. “Are you sure?”

  She half turned in her chair. “Yeah. Can you tell him –or think at him, or whatever— to not jump on me? That might be a little scary.”

  He almost wanted to laugh, but she sounded so nervous he didn’t dare. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  He stood up and pushed his pants down, kicking them away as he called his wolf. You heard her, he muttered inwardly, no jumping. In his mind, he projected an image of the wolf sitting like a well trained poodle beside her chair. He swore he felt the wolf chuckle as he faded back to let the wolf out.

  From the distant place in the back of the wolf’s mind he was always relegated to when his wolf was out, Stag felt the wolf go to Sherry, nails clicking on the wood floor. He sat primly and lifted one paw for her to shake. The wolf seemed confused when she didn’t take it. The wolf had seen pet dogs do that and it always made people smile. Stag tried to see Sherry’s face through the wolf’s eyes. Her face was frozen, eyes almost circular, as she cowered back with one hand clutching at her throat. The wolf could taste her fear in the quick, shallow breaths she panted. He whined and leaned away from Sherry, trying to look harmless.

  Throat working convulsively, Sherry reached a shaking hand to the wolf’s head.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed, “please, don’t bite me. Can you understand me? Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Stag should have told her the wolf didn’t understand words. But he understood actions. Sherry was touching his head with a hand that trembled and her scent screamed fear. The wolf didn’t want her to fear him. He leaned his considerable weight against her and laid his head in her lap. If he’d been a cat, he would have been purring.

  ***

  Sherry looked down at the monster head that took up nearly all of her lap. The wolf was just as big as she remembered from that first day at the plane. His fur was thick and rough under her fingers, but he didn’t move as she hesitantly stroked her hand along his head and neck. His eyes were closed in what looked like canine bliss.

  “Did you know that when I first came to America my father had a big, mean German Shepherd mix dog?” she whispered. “I never was very big, and when I was six years old, I was tiny. That dog was twice my size. My brother Antoine sicced him on me the second day I was there. Scared me to death. Antoine laughed and laughed.”

  Even now that memory hurt. The tears from earlier bloomed again.

  “I don’t know why Antoine was so mean to me. I was practically a baby, and it wasn’t my fault that his dad got my mom pregnant. He was only nine, and my father said boys will be boys, but he never did grow out of his meanness. Probably got it from his mother. She was a real witch.”

  The wolf whined, turning his head sideways on her knee to look up at her with eerie pale blue eyes nothing like Stag’s. But he still didn’t move, so Sherry dared to keep petting him. She could feel the leather cord of the small buckskin bag buried in the fur, the one Stag always wore. This really was Stag.

  ”I guess you’re not so scary. Not like Duke was. Maybe it was the way you jumped at me that day at the plane. I was sitting on the ground, so you looked even bigger than you are. It must have reminded me of all the times Duke lunged at me when I was a little girl. You won’t growl at me or lunge at me, will you?”

  Tears dripped off her face when she remembered the helpless child she had been, taken away from what was familiar and put into a place where she didn’t speak the language and no one looked out for her. Not only was she unloved, she was tortured by her half-siblings and terrorized by their dog. Sherry wept for that child now, drowning in the pain of abandonment and isolation that child had felt but couldn’t comprehend.

  “Why didn’t they love me?” she wailed into the wolf’s neck. “Why were they so mean to me? What’s wrong with me that no one ever loved me?”

  The wolf raised his head to lick at her face.

  “Even the dog hated me.” A wild wolf licked her tears, but a family pet had made her childhood a living hell. How many times had she crept past him to get to the bedroom she shared with her sister only to have Chantelle call the dog and tell him to bite Sherry? He never did bite, but the threat alone had petrified the little girl. “I never felt safe unless I was out of that house. Sometimes I wonder how I survived to grow up.”

  The wolf blew hot air at her, and suddenly she wasn’t clutching rough gray fur but smooth brown skin. Stag, on his knees, embraced her. Her first reaction was to stiffen and try to push him away.

  “Oh, Sherry,” he whispered against her throat. His voice was rough with tears. “I wish I would have been there. I would have protected you.”

  She wished he had been there, too. That little girl had needed a champion. Stag was warm against her, a living shield against a cruel world. “I bet that big old dog would have run away from you.”

  “My wolf would have shredded him. Sherry, they should have loved you.” He pulled back to look into her eyes. “You deserved to be loved and protected. You deserved it then and you deserve it now.” Tear tracks gleamed like liquid silver down his cheeks. “I promise I will always love you and protect you. Even if you never accept me, I will take care of you, the way your dad and your brothers should have. They were selfish, cruel assholes.”

  The last word was vehement. Sherry had never heard Stag use such foul language. Somehow it comforted her. She sniffed loudly and wiped a hand under her nose. She probably looked awful. Her head hurt and her eyes were swollen almost shut by her tears and her nose was running. She tried to smile at him. The smile was a trembling failure. “Thank you.”

  She’d had to go fifty years into the future to find someone who saw her father and his family for what they were. Even LeRoi never understood the extent of their cruelty. Her father didn’t approve of LeRoi, but he had charmed her step-mother. Chantelle had done her best to take LeRoi away, and taunted Sherry with stories of LeRoi’s moves in bed. Her sister had mockingly thanked her for being a prude, since that had allowed her to take care of LeRoi’s “manly needs” during their engagement. LeRoi denied sleeping with Chantelle. But that didn’t matter now. They were both dead.

  What she wouldn’t give for a Kleenex. Were there any hankies here? Sherry pushed Stag away to stand up and that’s when she noticed though his kneeling position hid his man bits, he was naked. Of course he was naked, he’d just changed from being a wolf. A shadow of her old revulsion touched her. Werewolves were not natural. But a few minutes ago his wolf had laid his head in her lap and let her pet him. He had licked her face. Tami had told her how the wolves at Taye’s den had fought and even died to defend her. Sherry looked down at Stag’s face with hope trembling in her heart. Would he catch her if she leaped?

  “Sherry?” Stag asked, standing up and revealing his limp penis. “What do you need?”

  Sherry was grateful he wasn’t aroused. “A tissue.” At his blank look, she elaborated. “A handkerchief to blow my nose. All this crying has clogged my nose and given me a rotten headache, too.”

  “I’ll make you some tea. That will help. You sit back down.”

  Sherry gritted her teeth. For a wolf who wasn’t Alpha, he was damn bossy. “You know, it sure would be nice if you asked instead of just telling me.”

  “Asked what?”

  “You should ask if I want tea.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “Sherry, would you like me to make some willow bark tea to help with your headache?”

  “Yes, Stag, I would, thank you.”

  He continued to stare for another moment before waving to the chest of drawers by the bed. “There should be some bits of cloth in the top drawer you can use for a handkerchief.”

  She found a pile of clean rags and blew her nose. Stag moved around the small kitchen area, dipping a small pot into the big kettle of water and putting it on the stove to begin heating before unwrapping a square of waxed paper filled with shredded bark. The fact that
he was stark naked didn’t bother him at all. Sherry appreciated the view. His strong back and round firm ass moved in a smooth symphony of muscle that made her want to pet him. She wondered, though, if his dangly bits weren’t worried about being so close to a hot stove. A tired giggle pushed at the back of her throat.

  In a few minutes he came back to her. “Come lie down,” he urged her, nudging her toward the bed. “The tea will take a while to steep. I’ll put some snow in a rag for your head.”

  He pulled off her shoes and got her settled in bed before leaving for a minute. He came back soon with a version of a cold compress and laid it on her forehead.

  “Sherry, what should we have for supper tonight?”

  She peered up at him from under the rag full of snow. “What are the choices?”

  “Stew or steak. The stew is already made. It just needs to be thawed and heated up.”

  “Stew sounds good.”

  “Alright. I’ll bring that in from the ice box.”

  Sherry felt his hand adjust the compress on her forehead and then brush over her cheek. For the first two months in this crazy world she had been afraid of Stag, repelled by the idea that he “claimed” her as if she were a piece of luggage in the airport, but with fewer feelings than the average suitcase. But even then she’d been physically attracted to him. In her dreams, sleeping and waking, she had imagined making love to him. She’d felt compelled to confess those dreams when she met a priest. Now she wasn’t repelled by him. Even his wolf had been cute. Kind of.