He came for her, and there was something dark and possessive in his expression.
It undid her. She wanted to belong to him, to give herself utterly and completely. In that moment, she couldn’t think, she could only want, and she offered herself in surrender.
His mouth claimed hers, and his lips were as sweet as they’d been before, bursting pleasure into her body. But there was something else behind the kiss. A touch of force, held in check.
Calla knew that he wanted to release it.
She wanted him to release it as well, and she pressed her body into his.
He let out a little groan—it was primitive, and it forced her body to come undone. Ripples of surrender went through her.
His hands smoothed over her waist. His fingers sunk into her hips, and he pulled her firmly into him.
Oh, he was so solid. Calla moaned, losing herself. She ran her hands over his massive shoulders, feeling every ridge and valley of his hard muscles. He was glorious.
His mouth left her lips and burned a hot trail over her jaw and neck, wrenching gasps from her at every kiss. His lips moved over her clavicle.
She sighed.
He dragged one hand up her body and closed it possessively over her breast.
Calla cried out at the sensation.
He sighed too. And then his lips were at her ear. “Soft,” he whispered.
What? Had he just spoken?
She sat straight up, pushing him off of her. “Ryder? What did you just say?”
He was startled and confused. He leapt backwards like a frightened deer and stared at her from several feet away, balancing on all fours.
Shit. She’d scared him. She held out both of her hands in a calming gesture. “It’s all right, Ryder,” she said in a quiet voice. “Come back here.”
He wouldn’t move.
“Can you say it again?” she asked. “Can you say that word?”
His gaze darted back and forth, searching for danger.
“I want to hear it,” she urged.
It was quiet. No sound except for summer insects and the distant song of birds. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to calm down. If he could speak, then maybe it wouldn’t be so horrible, what she kept doing with him. He wouldn’t be a wild animal, but a man, and then she’d be free to pursue…
What? A relationship? With Ryder the wild man?
She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. She was embarrassing herself. Her divorce had traumatized her and turned her into some sex freak, willing to allow a half-wit to paw her and kiss her. The hell of it was that she’d never felt anything quite as intense as his caresses, and he wasn’t even a real man.
As if to illustrate her point, Ryder let out a little whine and bent down in a crouching, feral posture.
He barely looked human.
She put her fingers to her lips. What was happening? Why did she feel as if she lost complete control of herself with this man?
There was a noise behind her.
Something stepping in the underbrush, breaking twigs, crackling leaves. It wasn’t especially loud, but there was no other noise now.
Ryder leaned forward, teeth bared, a low growl radiating from his body.
That frightened Calla. What did he sense? Was there something out there that was a threat?
She turned immediately but stayed low to the ground. She peered out into the woods, trying to see what was out there.
There was a flash. Something moving fast.
But Calla could see it was a man. A man with a gun. Maybe a hunter—although he wasn’t wearing camouflage or hunter’s orange. He seemed to have a white t-shirt on instead. More than that, she couldn’t make out, because he was gone so quickly, racing past them into the woods.
Ryder took off after the man, leaping out in that direction, still growling.
“Ryder,” she said quietly.
He ignored her. He thrashed forward, a snarl escaping his lips.
She tried to follow. She didn’t want to be alone.
But he reached back and placed a hand on her chest, holding her back.
So, she didn’t move. But she was amazed again, because that was another attempt to communicate, more than he’d made before. There was more inside him that she’d originally thought. He wasn’t all beast, after all. Of course, that still didn’t excuse her indiscretions. She should never have let him touch her the way that he did. Should never have touched him back.
Still, was this the time to think about that?
Ryder thought the man was dangerous.
Ryder stopped moving several feet ahead of her. He sniffed the air and then turned back to look at her.
Her heart began to thud, this time out of fear. She didn’t like this. The man in the woods… he might be a hunter, yes, but he’d seen them, hadn’t he?
If he’d seen them, why hadn’t he spoken? And if he was a hunter, why wasn’t he dressed like one? Actually, now that Calla thought about it, it wasn’t even hunting season. She felt as if a hole was growing in her stomach, and it was letting in dark, inky fear.
This wasn’t good.
The man might want to do them harm. She wasn’t sure why he’d do that, but she still wasn’t exactly clear on why Jasper had captured her either. Sure, he said he wanted her to help with Ryder, but that seemed strange to her. Bad things sometimes happened for no reason. Maybe this man was a wanted fugitive. Maybe he’d kill them both to make sure that no one knew where he was.
She was starting to sweat. She didn’t like the fact that Ryder was far away, and so she hurried over to him, conscious of how noisy every move she made was. The man with the gun might still be close by, and he might hear her.
Ryder was no longer growling, but he was still and quiet, listening and prepared.
She wanted to huddle against him. She wanted him to protect her. Ridiculous. Again, did she have a feminist bone in her body?
She looked around. She saw trees. Bushes. The sky overhead. Everything was green and brown. It looked peaceful, but, to Calla, it had all taken on a sinister edge. Danger was lurking behind the lush branches.
She thought of a news story she’d seen a few years ago. Maybe it had been one of those true-crime documentaries. She wasn’t quite sure. At any rate, a girl had been out on a hiking trip with a few friends when she’d been separated from the group. She’d gotten lost and she’d wandered onto private property. The land was owned by a paranoid conspiracy nut who had deliberately removed himself from society, and he didn’t like it when anyone came on his land.
On all his roads and driveways, he had huge handmade signs that said that trespassers would be shot, but the girl hadn’t come in through the road, and she hadn’t seen the signs. In fact, she didn’t have any idea where she was.
The man had been convinced that the girl was there to hurt him. He thought she was a spy or something. Calla couldn’t remember. She knew that the man was so paranoid that he was basically crazy. Anyway, he’d been convinced she was stalking him, so he’d stalked her back.
Thing was, it was unlikely the girl had even known he was following her until it was too late.
The closer and closer she got to his house, the more nervous the man got. He worried about what she would do to him. In his mind, she was very powerful and well armed. She could do all kinds of damage to him.
But there was no excuse for what he’d done to the girl.
He’d shot her with an arrow, but he hadn’t killed her.
She’d been terrified, though. Scared and bleeding, and she’d gone running through the woods, crying and yelling for help.
The man had then realized his mistake, and he’d known that he’d done something bad. So, he’d retreated to his house to hide, because he was worried about the repercussions.
But the girl had lost so much blood that she attracted the attention of a mountain lion out in the woods—one of the really big cougars. She’d been mauled to death, and when they found her, she was so mutilated that her
own parents hadn’t recognized her.
After watching that documentary, Calla had hardly been able to sleep, thinking of how horrible it must have been for the girl. She thought of the sheer terror of being lost in the woods, for one thing. Everything looking the same, not knowing where to go, not having food or water, being all alone.
And then being shot. Being hunted. Being hurt. And finally killed by an animal. Calla could hardly even fathom the ratcheting levels of horror. Each moment had made things worse for the poor girl.
Now, out in the woods, Calla felt just a tiny touch of that horror herself. Before, she would never have used the term “lost” to describe herself and Ryder, but she realized that she didn’t have a clue where she was. Even if she wanted to, she didn’t think that she could get back to camp. They were out here alone and there was a mad man after them.
She eyed Ryder, who still seemed vigilant.
Maybe she was being ridiculous. Ryder thought he was an animal. He’d be cautious of anything he didn’t understand. Perhaps he didn’t understand the man in the woods.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she should get up and call after him, ask him if he had any food or if he knew the way out of the woods.
But her heart seized with iron terror at the thought of doing anything of the sort.
She’d seen the man’s gun, cold and metal. Just a flash between the trees. The sun had caught the edge of the barrel, and the gun had gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. It looked wicked and dangerous.
And the way the man had run…
No, Calla was not going after that man, and she didn’t trust him.
She hoped he was gone, but—
Another noise. Close by. Something snapping—a branch or a bush, maybe.
Calla swallowed, dragging her gaze over the surrounding area, searching for any sign of the man or the gun.
Ryder tensed next to her. He crouched down as if he was ready to spring.
She didn’t see anything, but she couldn’t calm down. Her heart was beating double time, and she was certain that danger was just at the periphery of her vision. She adopted a similar crouch to Ryder’s and the two stayed close. He looked one direction, and she looked the other.
They waited.
But the noise didn’t come again, and neither saw what had made it.
They waited for longer.
Calla began to get a cramp in her legs from crouching down the way that Ryder did. She had to shift position. When she did, she rustled the undergrowth, and she cringed.
She held her breath, waiting for an answer from the woods around them, some movement in return.
But there was nothing.
Still, she didn’t move. She was frozen, and she mused that she was just like a frightened rabbit. She’d seen them freeze in place more than once—going so still as to be dead.
No one had taught Calla to freeze. It had simply been instinctive.
Maybe there was more of the animal in her than she’d like to admit. Maybe she and Ryder weren’t so different.
Eventually, she began to wonder if they should be staying here, stuck and not moving. Obviously, they should keep on their journey. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere.
She imagined that she and Ryder would begin their trek through the wood. Perhaps they’d get as far as a few hundred feet.
But then the man with the gun would appear, and the gun would gleam in the tired light, giving an evil, knowing wink before it exploded into the calm of the forest.
Calla thought of a bullet in Ryder, blood gushing, his eyes turning blank and empty.
It was more than she could take.
She had no reason to think that the man with the gun wanted to hurt them, but she… she felt it.
No, she and Ryder weren’t going anywhere.
Instead, they huddled in the woods as the sun began to sink. They kept watch over the trees around them. At every sound, they started. They were both on edge, both concerned.
The setting sun began to turn the woods orange. It cut a swath of reddish light through the trees, casting long, long shadows and dyeing everything with its mature tinge.
Still she and Ryder didn’t move.
The sounds of the forest were changing. The insects grew louder, more varied. Above, there was the flutter of bat wings as they escaped into the open air.
The shadows grew darker. Pooling between the bushes and grass, the woods seemed a hidden place.
Calla was on high alert.
And then they heard a noise.
This was distinctive. A man coming through the woods, crunching the leaves. He was even whistling.
She and Ryder looked in the direction of the sound, but it was dark, and they couldn’t see anything. The orange light didn’t reach far enough.
Calla’s heart began to beat irregularly. It pattered quickly, like a drum, then skipped a beat, then pattered quickly again. The inconsistency drove her terror to a fever pitch. She began to shake all over.
The man was coming. The gun was coming.
They’d be shot down in the red light of evening, and it would all be over.
She didn’t know what to do.
Could they fight? They had no weapons. Right now, her heart was in her throat, and she could hardly breathe, let alone move.
The footsteps were coming closer. The whistling grew more distinct. It was crisp and clear, hitting all the right notes. But it was sounding almost ghostly, unreal and unsettling.
Beside her, Ryder’s entire body was rigid. She could see his muscles standing up against his skin, every vein bulging. The cords of his neck stood out. His eyes were narrowed into slits. He was ready for whatever might happen.
The leaves crunched.
Calla shuddered.
And then…
Then it was suddenly silent.
She turned to look at Ryder, but he was sniffing the air.
Ryder started to get excited. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he let out a few short barking noises.
“What?” she whispered. She liked this less than his tense body.
Of course, Ryder didn’t tell her.
And while she was begging with him to speak, to explain…
A wolf jumped out of the underbrush and tackled Ryder.
Calla shrieked. The wolf was huge and furry, with enormous glistening teeth, and she couldn’t help but think of that night with the red balloon, that day so long ago, and the despair took her again, the fear and the anger, and—
She leapt on the wolf, wrapping her arms around its torso, and yanked on it.
She and the wolf fell backwards. “Let go of Ryder!” she yelled.
But then… then it was confusing, because the wolf was squirming in her arms, except it wasn’t his limbs that were moving, but rather his skin. His fur was ripping and changing, and he was changing shape, and…
Calla flung the body of the wolf away from her, scrambling backwards.
Within minutes, it wasn’t a wolf there. It was Jasper. He was naked, and he was laughing.
She averted her eyes, full of conflicted emotions. She was still terrified, but she was also confused, and she was embarrassed by Jasper’s nudity as well. Additionally, she was angry, because he’d found them.
Jasper went off into the woods and came back with his jeans on. He was holding his shirt in one hand. It was white.
“You.” Calla got to her feet. “You’ve been chasing us and scaring us. Where’s your gun?”
“I just got here,” said Jasper. “I shifted into a wolf to teach you a lesson, girlie. Don’t think I won’t hurt you if I have to.”
She drew back. What was he saying?
“Don’t try leaving the camp again,” said Jasper. “You can’t get very far on foot. And wherever you do go, I can track you. You left a trail that I could easily scent out. But it’s annoying and a waste of my time. If you try it again, you’re going to feel teeth and claws.”
In spite of herself, she shivered.
Jasper gestured with his head. “Come on. Back to the camp.”
She hugged herself. “You don’t have a gun? You weren’t out here, circling us?”
“No,” said Jasper. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s someone else out here,” she said. “Ryder doesn’t like him. I don’t either. I think he’s dangerous, whoever he is.”
“No one lives out here, lady,” said Jasper. “You got yourself worked up over nothing. We’re the only people here.”
“I don’t…” She knew that the other man was there. “Can’t you scent out his trail?”
“We’re going back to camp,” said Jasper. He took her by the arm.
She let Jasper lead her away, but she couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder as they left. The man with the gun was still out here. She was sure of it.
CHAPTER SIX
Ryder was vaguely bemused when they started going back the way they had come, but not entirely so. He wasn’t much accustomed to the idea of setting out for a destination. Certainly, wolves did it, but Ryder hadn’t been a normal wolf, even when he was changed for all those years. He’d had a pack, but it had been a human pack, and so he didn’t behave the way wolves in the wild might. Instead, he’d been all alone, and he’d wandered aimlessly for years and years, never straying too far from his human pack, but never quite being part of them either. His life had consisted of looking for food, running and jumping through the woods, and sleeping. Nothing more.
Now that he was back in the man skin, food wasn’t a problem. It was brought to him, and he didn’t have to hunt for it.
Ryder sometimes missed the thrill of the hunt, but he didn’t miss the times when food was scarce, when he nearly starved.
It took quite a long time to get back to the camp, though Ryder didn’t know that was what it was called. The sky had darkened and the stars had come out. It was a warm summer night, and Ryder was happy not to be moving anymore.
Jasper started a fire. Ryder didn’t remember Jasper’s name. He only knew that he was pack. There was a familiarity to Jasper, something that soothed Ryder and let him know he was with family.
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