Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines)

by Lia Silver

  “Don’t—” he began.

  “If you don’t want me to touch you because you don’t want to be touched, I’ll take my hand away. But if you’re afraid you’ll knock it off, well, you can see that you haven’t.”

  Her warm touch sank deep into his body, as if he was made of melting ice. Roy desperately wanted to take her in his arms, but now more than ever, he couldn’t get involved. He couldn’t raise her hopes.

  He couldn’t raise his hopes.

  Roy opened his mouth to say that he didn’t want to be touched, but instead blurted out, “Don’t take it away.”

  “Okay.” Laura gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “By the way, when I asked you what you’d say, I didn’t mean you shouldn’t be upset or you shouldn’t talk about it. It just seemed like you were going into a bad place.”

  “I was. Thanks for pulling me out.” Roy tipped his head back, looking up at the sky. It was a perfect clear blue, without a single cloud. Like it had been washed clean.

  That blinding fog of desperation and loneliness and rage and despair had seeped away, leaving him drained but clear-headed. But he could sense that whatever madness had come over him was still inside him somewhere, a land mine waiting for a careless step.

  He thought through his options, resolutely focusing only on DJ, not on Laura and not on himself, and definitely not on the nonexistent himself-and-Laura.

  “I think the best thing to do about DJ is to stick with the original plan and drive down to see his family,” Roy said at last. “If he did escape, they’ll know it—he’d never leave his family in the dark. If he didn’t, maybe some of them can help me break him out or put me in touch with someone who can. The snow’s melting fast. We could leave at dawn tomorrow.”

  And after Laura dropped him off, he’d probably never see her again.

  “Good plan,” Laura said.

  Roy wondered what she was thinking. It was obvious that she cared about him. Her hand was still resting on his shoulder, as if she couldn’t stand to let go of him. She’d said she wanted to be his friend. But she hadn’t protested when he’d said that having sex was a mistake and they shouldn’t do it again.

  Laura was a realist, he supposed: too smart to bang her head against a brick wall of impossibility. She’d put her trauma behind her and turn her skills to better use, becoming a private investigator or maybe something else exciting that neither of them had even thought of yet. She’d wish him well and remember him fondly, but that was all. She was a free spirit, with too much sense to tie herself to a man who would only drag her down.

  Though the sun shone bright, an icy wind rustled the leaves and blew back Laura’s brown-sugar curls. She was shivering.

  “We should go back inside,” Roy said. “At least to get you a jacket.”

  “Okay.” She stood up, her hand sliding from his shoulder. A pang of loss twisted his heart.

  Suck it up, he told himself.

  “Aren’t you cold?” Laura asked.

  Roy glanced down at himself. He wore a T-shirt and jeans, the latter now drenched in mud and water, with no more protection from the wind than Laura had. Less: he’d run out barefoot, and hadn’t even noticed till now. “No. Not since…”

  “The werewolfing?” Laura suggested.

  “Yeah. Apparently I have to lie down in the snow with a gunshot wound to the chest before cold starts bothering me.” Yet another way in which he’d been changed. At least this one was a benefit.

  “Can I ask for a weird favor?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Could I see you turn into a wolf again? It’s so cool, and I didn’t get to appreciate it the one time I saw it, since I was afraid for my life and all.” Her tone was half-embarrassed, half-excited.

  Roy grinned. “Sure.”

  He changed, and stood looking up at Laura with a wolf’s eyes. Her scent was stronger, more complex: not only lemons and sugar, but an animal warmth and a touch of bitterness.

  That’s the lemon peel. He laughed as a wolf laughs, mouth open and panting.

  Laura offered him the back of her hand. He licked it playfully, tasting salt and the clean mineral taste of melted snow. He could smell a trace of his own scent on her, still lingering after they’d touched.

  “Can I touch your fur?” she asked.

  Nodding felt unnatural, so he butted his head up against her palm. She stroked the fur on his head, then buried her hands in the thick fur on his back.

  “My own personal hand-warmer,” she remarked. “Everyone who lives out here should have a wolf.”

  He nuzzled her, then spotted a snowdrift under a spreading oak tree, shadowed and un-melted. It rose high, deep enough to cover him. He leaped into it and rolled in the snow. It felt soft and cool, not wet; his coat was so thick that it didn’t penetrate to his skin.

  When he stood up, Laura was smiling. “It’s fun to be a wolf, huh?”

  He shook himself, sending snow flying in a tiny blizzard.

  “Hey!” Laura was flecked with snow now. She went to the drift, scooped out a handful and packed it into a ball, and tossed it into the air. “Fetch!”

  Roy leaped up and caught the snowball in his jaws. It dissolved in a crunch and burst of cold.

  She tossed snowball after snowball to him, throwing them farther and farther, making him run and jump to catch them. A wild playfulness possessed him, making him determined to catch every one. His wolf body moved easily, powerfully, tireless. He felt as if he could do anything. Laura ran too, darting here and there, packing snow until her fingers and nose and cheeks were red.

  One moment they were both tearing through the snow, panting, and the next they stumbled to a halt. Laura was shivering. The wound in Roy’s chest burned with cold, as if he’d been stabbed with an icicle.

  He changed, and stood before her as a man. His shirt was dry, but only for an instant; the snow clinging to his skin melted from his body heat, leaving him drenched from head to toe. Laura too was damp with snow and sweat. Her blouse clung tight, giving Roy a terrific view of every luscious curve he would never touch again.

  “That was fun,” she said, still breathing hard. “I’m freezing, though. Want to go back in?”

  “Sure.” As they headed down the hill, Roy had to stop himself from putting his arm around her or taking her hand.

  We’re buddies, he told himself. Just buddies.

  “What’s it feel like?” she asked.

  “To change?”

  “To be a wolf. You told me how your senses are different, but beyond that…?”

  It was difficult to put it into words, now that he was a man again, but he did his best. “It’s not just a different body. The longer I stay a wolf, the more I think the way a wolf thinks. I get more impulsive. It’s hard to think about the future. When I jump, I’m completely caught up in what it feels like to jump, and I’m not thinking about anything else. It’s like being in combat, but more so. I don’t think it’s possible for a human being to be that single-minded.”

  “Does it feel strange?”

  Roy shook his head. “It feels natural. Like I’d always been a wolf.”

  “In a good way?”

  “We don’t even have words to describe how amazing it feels.”

  “I wish I could be a wolf, just once,” Laura said wistfully.

  That brought Roy back down to earth. The idea of Laura undergoing the same pain he’d endured and having her life ruined made his stomach turn over. “It isn’t worth it.”

  Laura touched his shoulder, just a quick brush of her fingers, but it felt reassuring. “I know.”

  Inside the cabin, they changed out of their wet clothes, Laura in the bedroom and Roy in the bathroom.

  I’ll never get to watch her undress, he thought. I’ll never get to watch her get dressed.

  He’d always enjoyed the casual intimacy of changing clothes in front of a girlfriend and getting asked his opinion on various outfits. Now he’d never know if Laura was the sort of woman who liked him to pu
t on a suit and escort her to a fancy restaurant, or the sort who would always vote for him wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, no matter where they went. He’d never know if she would strike a playful or sexy pose in her bra and panties, or if she’d strip down as offhandedly as if she was in a locker room.

  Stop obsessing over everything you’ll never do with her, he ordered his masochistic imagination. Breaking it off was your choice, and it was the right thing to do. Suck. It. Up.

  He found Laura in the kitchen, making venison steak sandwiches for the next day’s trip. Roy leaned on the counter, opening jars upon request and watching her work. She took excessive care with them, selecting and layering each ingredient exactly right. Finally, when the last sandwich was completed to her satisfaction, her honey-brown eyes met his.

  “I hate to bring this up, but if you have that much trouble with electric lights, how are you going to do in a car?” She was eyeing him like she had when he’d been on knocked out on the kitchen floor, as if he was some fragile thing that would break if she handled him roughly. No, worse: as if he was already broken.

  He tried not to visibly bristle. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you, but—”

  “I’ll be fine,” he repeated. “You can hardly hear the engine when you’re inside. The street lights won’t be on in the day. Don’t turn on the radio, and I won’t look at the instrument panel, and—”

  “—you’ll be fine?”

  “Yeah.”

  Laura gave a short, frustrated sigh. “Look, Roy, I didn’t bring it up to get on your case. I was going to ask if you wanted to do a test drive later today, if the ice has all melted by then.”

  “Oh.” He thought about it, then shook his head. “No, that’s okay. It doesn’t make a difference.”

  Laura’s eyebrows pulled together, making him feel as if she could see right through him. “No matter how bad it is for you, you’re going to tough it out?”

  “That’s right.”

  “For seven hours.”

  “For as long as it takes.”

  Laura gave him another searching look, then shrugged. “Okay. Your call.”

  ***

  After lunch, Laura put on her red parka and they went on a hike. When he walked and talked with her as a man, they didn’t touch, but when he paced beside her as a wolf, she rested one hand on his back. As a wolf, he simply enjoyed the touch of her fingers on his fur. As a man, the memory of it was bittersweet.

  Roy broke the silence after they finished dinner that night. “I’ll sleep on the bedroom floor.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Laura. “It’ll be cold and uncomfortable.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “You’re still recovering. You’ll get sick.”

  A burning wave of anger and bitterness surged up in him. He shoved back his chair and stood, palms flat on the table. “Don’t treat me like I’m weak!”

  “Don’t be so fucking macho!” Laura yelled back, jumping up to face him.

  They stood glaring at each other across the table. Roy loomed over Laura, but she didn’t give an inch. Her scowl could kill at twenty paces.

  She’s a match for me, he realized. She can stand up to me. If I push her, she pushes back. I didn’t know that was what I was looking for, until now.

  Though neither of them spoke, the anger between them dissipated, replaced by a different kind of energy. The air between them seemed to crackle with sexual tension. It took all his self-control not to reach across the table and pull her in for a kiss. If he did, he knew, she’d kiss him back and three minutes later, they’d be having sex on the floor or up against the wall or—

  Laura started to reach up to him. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he forced himself to put up his hand to stop her.

  “If we sleep in the same bed, you know we won’t be able to keep our hands off each other,” he said.

  “And that would be terrible, because…?” Laura fired the question at him like a punch to the face.

  “Because I’m leaving you!”

  She froze where she stood, and all the sweetness drained out of her scent.

  Roy sank down into his chair, as worn out and empty as if he’d fighting all day. “I don’t want to make this harder than it already is.”

  Laura too sat back down. “Fine. I’ll take the bed. You take the sofa. You said you’re a light sleeper. Anything happens, you’ll be in the bedroom in seconds, right?”

  Roy ran a mental check on himself. He felt more than strong enough to take on any intruders, as a man or as a wolf—assuming they didn’t turn on the lights. “Yeah.”

  I’m doing the honorable thing, he told himself. Leading her on would be cruel to her.

  Since he was the only one who could hear, he allowed himself to add, And it would rip my heart out.

  Roy felt like his heart had been ripped out already. He pushed back his chair and ran to the bathroom, where he splashed cold water over his face, his chest heaving.

  None of this was like him. He didn’t get ambushed by impulses, he controlled them. He didn’t leave people, they left him.

  Then be yourself, he ordered. You’re strong. You’re hard. You master your emotions. They don’t master you.

  It didn’t help. Loneliness tore at him like a physical pain, followed by an overwhelming rush of grief for everything he’d lost.

  His career. His home. His identity as a Marine.

  His health. His confidence in his own strength and endurance.

  His mother. The father he’d never had. His ex-girlfriends. His hometown friends, with whom he’d had nothing in common by the time he returned from his first tour of duty.

  The boy he’d been, who’d never done more harm to another human being than break someone’s jaw in a fist fight.

  His buddies, whom he’d left behind.

  Everyone who’d been wounded so badly that they could never come back. Everyone who had gone home and killed themselves. Everyone who had gone home and lost themselves in bottles or drugs or rage or despair.

  Everyone who’d died on his watch. Everyone who’d died in his unit. Everyone who was still fighting without him.

  Laura.

  Roy could almost feel the air molecules striking his skin, as if he’d been burned until all his nerve endings were exposed. Everything hurt, inside and out.

  He stumbled away from the sink, fetched up against the wall, and slid down until he was sitting with his forehead pressed against his knees. There he wrapped his arms tight around himself and controlled his breathing so he didn’t make a sound.

  Roy had no idea how long he sat like that, shaking and silent. Eventually he grabbed the edge of the sink and hauled himself to his feet. The mirror reflected a haunted man, pale and disheveled, staring blankly into the distance. He couldn’t let Laura see him like that.

  He took a shower, turning the heat off so he could run it as long as he liked and still leave hot water for Laura. Lifting his face into the icy spray, he imagined the water washing away everything, his feelings and his thoughts and his pain, his very self, leaving him clean and stripped to the bone. He was a warrior, a wolf, a weapon. It hurt too damn much to be Roy.

  When he finally extracted himself from the shower, he put on his pajamas and went back to the living room. To his relief, Laura was gone and the bedroom door was closed. She’d pulled out the sofa and made it up as a bed. It was probably still early, but he was worn out. He lay down and buried his face in a pillow that smelled like her.

  For a long time, he lay exhausted and aching, too tired to rest. He could hear Laura breathing in the other room. From the rustles of tossing and turning, she too found it difficult to sleep.

  When he finally drifted off, he dreamed of walking through his hometown. It was deserted. Restaurants had half-eaten plates of food on the tables and crashed cars burned in the streets, but there were no people anywhere.

  Roy knew that the town had be
en hit by a weapon that vaporized living things, leaving inanimate objects intact. He ran through the streets, racing toward the border, desperate to get to the next town over and hear human voices again.

  When he finally saw the sign for the next town, his heart leapt. But when he ran into it, he found it silent and lifeless. A child’s bicycle lay by the side of the road, its wheels spinning, beside a dog’s empty collar.

  Every town had been hit. Roy was the last living being left in the world.

  He awoke drenched in sweat, his heart hammering, his muscles tensed until they cramped, his jaw clenched. His chest hurt. He couldn’t breathe.

  Roy yanked at his pajama shirt. He only meant to loosen it, but all the buttons popped off the front. There was nothing around his throat or compressing his chest, but he still felt like he was suffocating.

  He longed to call out for Laura. If she’d come and put her arms around him, even sit near him and let her scent surround him, he’d be all right. He imagined her stroking his hair, rubbing his shoulders, making him believe deep down to his bones that he wasn’t alone. But instead of comforting him, his fantasy only reminded him that she would never touch him again.

  Finally, he remembered Marco’s technique. Roy rubbed the blanket between his fingers and told himself that it was warm and heavy and scratchy, then laid his hand on the sofa and told himself that it firm and smooth and had a penny wedged between two cushions. He found three things that were white, then three things that were black. But even when he could breathe again and he’d managed to unlock his jaw, he was afraid to go back to sleep.

  He padded outside and sat on the porch, looking at the night sky. The stars were brilliant overhead without the dulling effect of electric lights, and he could clearly see the dusty veil of the Milky Way. A shooting star streaked across the blackness. Then a meteor, tumbling down in a trail of flame.

  Roy thought of artillery lighting up the sky in Afghanistan, and trading books around his platoon, and how he might rescue DJ. He thought of his favorite movies, and Mom’s funniest stories about stupid criminals, and the half-philosophical, half-absurd monologues DJ would spin out when he was trying to keep himself awake at the wheel.