Howlin'

by Allyson James

They both hung up. Patrice sat back and heaved a long sigh.

  She tried to bury herself in the mountain of papers on her desk, but caught herself every ten minutes with her palm pressing hard to the warmth between her legs.

  The lust-crazed thoughts wouldn’t stop, even when she wrote her mundane report on the marijuana crop she’d found along a wash. The innocent-looking, elderly woman who’d grown it seemed surprised when Patrice went out to arrest her.

  Patrice shook her head, finished the last report at four on the dot and hightailed it out to her SUV.

  Jackson was waiting for her.

  “I was sniffing around while you worked,” he said as they headed up the highway toward Alain’s turnoff.

  “Smell anything?”

  He grinned. “Two horny werewolves. Your scent is all over the place.”

  “Does it ever stop? This awful need?”

  “No.” He leaned against the door and folded his arms. “But you can learn to control it. In fact, you have to, or it will eat you alive. Alain controls it, but barely. The two of you are driving each other crazy.”

  “Have you learned to control it?”

  “No. But I’m not Were. The benefit of being a god.”

  “Are their drawbacks?” she asked.

  He sobered. “Yes.”

  She waited for him to tell her what, but he remained silent for the rest of the journey to Alain’s.

  * * * * *

  Alain tried to sit calmly in the living room while they talked about what they’d discovered today. He’d built a fire in the fieldstone fireplace, the weather at last chilly enough for it, and the wood smoke smelled pleasant.

  It couldn’t mask Patrice’s scent, her lovely female pheromones, which in turn couldn’t mask the scent of Jackson all over her. She was looking at him with hungry eyes and he knew that despite his shower, Jackson’s scent was probably on him too.

  “I think we’d better have sex,” Jackson said quietly. “Before you two lose all control.”

  “Good idea,” Patrice said fervently.

  She stood up and came to Alain. The dominance of the male wolf to the female flared up in him and he had to make himself stay still and see what she would do.

  When she sat down on his lap, his wolf side wanted to put her on the floor and rip off her clothes, but the Alain side of him stopped it. He liked that she touched him so gently, her fingers sliding under his shirt.

  He kissed her. He loved the taste of her mouth, the heat of it. He’d been in such a frenzy before that he hadn’t had time to simply savor her.

  “That’s right, my friends,” Jackson said softly. “Enjoy each other.”

  Alain nipped her lips and she laughed. Jackson slid onto the sofa beside them, his warm bulk leaning on Alain. He kissed Patrice’s mouth and Alain’s too.

  Alain unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. Patrice got a gleam in her eye, and she slid from the sofa to her knees.

  He expected her to pull his pants open and close her soft mouth around his cock. He braced himself for it, wanting it, then opened his eyes with a snap when he instead felt cold metal around one wrist.

  Patrice grinned up at him. “I brought my handcuffs.”

  Real ones, not pretend things from an adult store. He looked at the steel cuff around his broad wrist and then at the other cuff around Jackson’s. She’d handcuffed the two men together.

  “Shit,” he whispered.

  Jackson was laughing as he unfastened and pulled down his own jeans. “Told you she was fun.”

  Patrice pushed Alain’s pants open and helped him slide the waistband of his underwear over his hips. Then she lowered her head and licked Alain’s cock.

  “Oh no,” Alain moaned. He lifted his right hand to tangle in Patrice’s hair, but it was hampered by the cuff. He let his wrist drop and Jackson’s hand landed on his thigh.

  Patrice sat back on her heels and openly stared at the two long cocks displayed for her. “Yum,” she said.

  Alain shifted his hips a little, seeking her mouth. This was killing him.

  Patrice smiled, eyes feral. She bent over Jackson this time and took his cock into her mouth, lips moving as she suckled. The sight of the other man’s cock pressing against her cheek from the inside made him want to come right there.

  She turned back to Alain. He could smell Jackson’s pheromones, the man hotter and hotter as Patrice happily licked and suckled Alain’s cock.

  He couldn’t stand it anymore. He got off the sofa fast but he was still locked to Jackson, who came up with him. Alain’s jeans fell around his ankles, and Patrice looked delighted.

  “Don’t move,” she said. “Stand just there.”

  Alain and Jackson were facing each other over her. Patrice licked Alain’s cock, then turned her head and licked Jackson’s.

  “I just love this girl,” Jackson chuckled.

  She knelt back on her heels. “Stand closer together.”

  Jackson laughed again. “I think I know what she wants.”

  He put his hand on Alain’s shoulder, and Alain put his hands on Jackson’s. They clasped their locked-together hands then moved until the tips of their cocks touched. Alain was breathing hard, the wolf in him trying to rise. He caressed Jackson’s tight shoulder, resisting the urge to lean over and kiss him.

  He felt Patrice’s tongue snake from his balls all the way down his cock, then leave to curl around Jackson.

  I just love this girl too.

  The buildup inside him was incredible. He wasn’t in her—hell, he wasn’t even touching her—but the intensity of what she did took his breath away. Too soon he started to come. A drop of seed trickled to Jackson’s cock, then the wild wolf rose inside him and he changed.

  Patrice shrieked in surprise and jumped backward as Alain’s wolf self ripped through his clothes. His black wolf was huge, dwarfing the living room, but his paw was slim enough that he could pull out of the cuff.

  To his wolf vision, Patrice’s body was only the outer shell of her. He sense her wolf imprinted over her, and he wanted it—his mate. He lowered his head to her, lips pulled back in a snarl.

  “You’d better change,” Jackson said, catching the dangling cuff.

  Patrice nodded and began to pull off her clothes. Too slow. Alain seized her shirt in his teeth and ripped it.

  “Nice doggy,” Patrice said, wide-eyed. She patted Alain’s head. “Give me a second.”

  She toed off her shoes then shimmied out of her jeans and underwear while Alain tried to contain himself. He smelled the change as well as saw it, feeling the electricity of it along his fur.

  Patrice shifted relatively quickly—she was learning. Her body shuddered as it fought the shift for a moment, then her face elongated and sleek fur rippled over her. She was an elegant silver wolf, her green eyes like the palest jade.

  Mine.

  He snarled but held himself back from doing more than nuzzling her. Patrice took the initiative, brushing her body along his, filling him with her scent. She rolled over onto her back and nipped playfully at his throat.

  His wolf and his lust took over, and things got a little blurry. Dimly he heard Jackson say, “I’ll leave you kids to it. Wolves don’t share their mates.”

  He had that right. Alain growled at the coyote until the man walked out the front door, chuckling. “Have fun, now,” he threw over his shoulder, then he was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Their wolf mating was wild and crazed, the whole thing a bit fuzzy to Patrice.

  A bit fuzzy, she laughed to herself as she woke up on the bed.

  She was human again, and nude, cuddled against Alain’s very human back. Without turning, Alain grasped her hand and pulled it around his waist.

  “I bet we shed a lot,” she said, feeling deep contentment. “All over your living room rug.”

  “I have a vacuum cleaner.”

  She chuckled. “Your neighbors must wonder about all your dog hair, when you don’t have a dog.”

  “The
neighbors don’t come over,” he murmured. “At least not now. I don’t know what my father told them.”

  A hint of sadness broke through her contentment. She would not be here with him if Alain’s father hadn’t died. She squeezed his hand, sympathetic to his grief.

  “He was lonely,” she said. “Like you. And me.”

  “Wolves are lonely. It’s the way things are, until they find that special mate.”

  Patrice rose on her elbow. “I thought wolves ran in packs. They always do on nature shows anyway.”

  “Those are true wolves and they’re dying out. They never got used to humans like coyotes did.”

  “Poor things. I remember the experiment to reintroduce wolves to southern Arizona a while back. Within a few years, most of them were dead, many shot. The ranchers just don’t like them—say they attack the cattle.”

  “Werewolves don’t. But we don’t always breed true and that’s how you make more werewolves, you know—mating. It’s not the werewolf bite. It’s too bad that myth isn’t real, because there are so few of us anymore.”

  “Maybe that’s why we crave all this sex,” Patrice suggested. “The need to continue the species.”

  He made a noise of amusement. “Maybe.”

  “This Gina Wood isn’t a werewolf?”

  “No. Her scent was human, not Were. I’m betting my dad just liked her. They shared the same interests.”

  “And now she’s missing.” Patrice stroked the tattoo on Alain’s arm while she thought. “She left not long before your father was killed. She might have made it look like she’d gone, then came back and killed him.”

  “Then why not take her suitcases?”

  “To make it look like she was running away from him?” That explanation didn’t seem satisfactory to her detective instincts. “Or else she’s dead, her body waiting to be found.”

  Alain turned over. “Poor lady.”

  “I’ll file a report on her, list her as a missing person and ask for a search. The county sheriff will get involved in that—they have posses that will ride out into the desert.”

  Alain grinned, silver eyes glinting. “Posses. Like the wild west.”

  “It’s still the wild west out here in many ways. People carry guns legally—a cop has to watch her back, even in a small town.”

  “Now I’m here to watch your back.”

  Warm feeling flooded her. “And I can watch yours.”

  He kissed her, the kiss of a man in the afterglow of lovemaking. And maybe wanting to follow up with more.

  Patrice had another idea how to find Gina Wood, if she could be found, but she decided they could talk about it later.

  * * * * *

  Jackson returned when the sun was sinking, twilight sliding a blanket of stars over Sedona. Patrice loved the night sky, the dry air revealing thousands of stars overhead. In the cities, light pollution swallowed all but the brightest stars—out here they clustered thick and white across the sky.

  Alain and Patrice were back on the sofa, kissing, when Jackson came in. They hadn’t dressed, but at the moment Patrice felt the restless pull of the wolf rather than the need to mate. She could sense Alain’s wolf pulling him too.

  “You made a joke before about me being a sniffer-dog for the police,” she said to Jackson.

  Jackson smiled. “That’s true.”

  “I thought I’d try it for real. Get a good scent of Gina’s clothes and then track her.”

  “I tried to pick up her scent already today,” Alain said. “I went out hunting while you were working.”

  Patrice blushed, remembering what she and Jackson had done while “working”.

  “I know, but I know specific places to start looking. We get a lot of smuggling across the deserts, with remote houses used as drug pick-up points. They would be great places to hide someone, and I know where most of them are. Plus we can return to the hunter’s blind Jackson found, see what scents are there.”

  “It’s worth a shot.” Jackson shrugged.

  As Jackson undressed, Patrice left the couch and walked onto the front porch, feeling the wolf yearn for moonlight. Behind her she heard Jackson and Alain making noises of approval at her bare backside.

  “We’d better get hunting,” Jackson said. “Or we’ll be here all night.”

  Alain only growled again.

  Patrice knew she’d already become part of the wolf because a week ago she’d never have dreamed of walking outside naked. Even knowing Alain’s place was remote and she’d have time to duck back inside if anyone came down the drive, she wouldn’t have done it. People just didn’t go outside naked.

  Now it felt natural to walk out under the starlit sky and stretch her arms overhead like she was embracing it.

  Alain, now the huge black wolf, trotted past her. She concentrated, changed and followed him.

  Alain led her to the garage where he’d found Gina’s things. Jackson remained in human form long enough to open the door for them, then sort through Gina’s clothes and let them get a good sniff. Once they were outside again, he sank down into his coyote body.

  “Let’s run,” he said.

  They crossed the creek and headed through the juniper and pines, the pungent scents comforting. Patrice easily climbed the faint trails, keeping up with Jackson and Alain. Her newfound strength amazed her.

  They at last emerged onto a desert mesa, a flat-topped hill with steep sides. The long, narrow mesa ran for miles, a perfect place for two wolves and a coyote to go flat out. In the dark, isolated from the town, they could let loose.

  Patrice led them down into another canyon to a tiny, remote house where she’d made drug busts before. She knew even before they went in that Gina had not been there. The place smelled of dust and desertion—no humans had entered the place in months.

  She took them to several more houses with the same result before they doubled back and found the hunter’s blind. Again, Patrice smelled only one human—male, she thought—and Alain confirmed it.

  “I’ve smelled this before.” Alain sat on his haunches, moonlight rippling in his black fur. His eyes, as silver as the stars, narrowed as he thought. “I think I remember where.” He rose, shook himself, then led them off.

  They trotted and loped back toward civilization, the night crisp and refreshing. Patrice ran hard on Alain’s heels, excited that they might have found a lead. Jackson brought up the rear, humming and singing snatches of songs—all in coyote. Far away across the hills, coyotes yipped in answer.

  Alain skirted a county road, staying in the shadow of juniper and scrub. Patrice heard the heartbeats of rabbits huddled together and the swift wings of doves that fluttered out of their way.

  Alain leapt a barbed wire fence, easily clearing it, then turned to wait for them. Patrice eyed the barbs at the top of the fence, dubious about her own jumping skills. She hesitated until Jackson nipped her rear, then she sprang over with a squeal.

  Chortling, Jackson launched himself up and over, his four legs spread as though he flew. He let out a howl of glee as he touched down and Alain growled him to silence.

  “This is the Circle T ranch,” Patrice said, looking around. “Owned by a man called Dunstan.”

  “Does anyone else live here besides him?”

  “I don’t think so,” Patrice said. “But I don’t know how many people work here. I mostly go places where there’s trouble and I’ve never been called out here.”

  Alain looked thoughtful and didn’t answer.

  They trotted across the range toward the outbuildings tucked in a hollow of the grasslands. The cattle were on the other side of the rolling hills, but Patrice’s new wolf senses smelled and heard their worry. She wondered if they’d feel better if she told them she was vegetarian.

  Arizona didn’t have huge barns like in the Midwest because the weather was never severely cold. Cattle were free-range or kept in shaded pens. But Arizona ranchers did have smaller barns where they stored hay plus sheds in which to keep equipment. Alain
sniffed hard around these, his nose nearly glued to their foundations.

  “He’s been here.”

  Patrice smelled it too, faintly, and Jackson agreed. She also smelled Gina Wood. Her hackles rose excitedly. “They’re here.”

  Alain sat down, giving her a severe look. “You’re new at this. The scent is faint—all we can say for certain is that they were here at one time.”

  “Oh.” Patrice paced along the wall, sniffing, trying to still her disappointment. Her wolf wanted to find the killer and grab him by the throat.

  The thought made her stop. The Patrice she knew was a protector, not a killer. But knowing someone had deliberately taken Alain’s father from him made her anger rise. Wolves were lonely by nature and to lose another so close… She knew it had been horrible for Alain.

  She nuzzled Alain, whining a little, and stroked herself against him. He nipped gently at her.

  Jackson sat back, watching as though knowing what Patrice had to work through.

  “We need to get inside,” Alain rumbled.

  He trotted around to the front of the hay barn, then rose on his legs and changed to Alain the man. He tried the door and found it locked. Still in human form, he walked around the hay barn, then moved to the shed. Both were locked up tight.

  Patrice enjoyed the sensual way he moved, naked and unashamed. She noticed Jackson watching him too.

  Alain put his hands on his hips and looked at the house a little way from the barn. No lights shone in the windows, the occupants either asleep or out. Dropping to all fours as a wolf again, he led them across the dry scrub, moving as silently as a ghost.

  “The scent is fainter here,” he said.

  The three of them halted in the shadow of a large juniper, out of sight of the windows. A rancher spotting two wolves and a coyote in his yard would call animal control—or use his own animal control in the form of a shotgun. Regular bullets wouldn’t kill a wolf, so legends said, but Patrice had no interest in seeing how badly it hurt before her body healed.

  Patrice circled Alain, then Jackson, unable to keep still. “Are we going in?”

  “Slowly,” Jackson said, his tone calm. “This man might be dangerous, or he might be innocent. Both scents are old—both people might be far away.”