by Riley Moreno
She tried to stand, to run away, and howled in despair when her legs gave out beneath her. No! She wouldn’t give in. She had to get away. Jana looked up just in time to see another figure approach, and they looked like indistinct shadows in her drug-wrought mind.
In no time at all, they had her legs tied, and she was thrown heedlessly into a large burlap sack that was tied to some sort of stretcher. Inside, the darkness closed in, threatening to overwhelm her, and she howled again before she could stop herself.
The two men laughed roughly.
“You can howl all you want, Jacob. You’ve been hunting us, torturing us, for years, but now the tables are turned. We have you! And you’re not getting away until you hear the full story, got it?”
Jana whimpered again, realizing for the first time that they knew what she was, if not who. They thought she was someone else. She tried to calm her racing heart, trying to think critically like her father taught her. Tentatively, she sniffed the air. Through the stench of her own fear and sweat, and the old, scratchy burlap sack, she could just make out their scent. Her blue eyes widened in the darkness. They were shifters, just like her! But she didn’t recognize from what pack.
Every wolf in the area knew each other, but these two were strangers. The stories of the ghosts of the mountain flooded back, but she pushed them away. There is more than one side to every story, she told herself, but it did nothing to stem the panic that crashed through her. Jana could feel the drug’s effects, trying to pull her under into unconsciousness. She must have ingested more than she’d realized.
Jana tried to shift back into human form so she could tell them that they had made a mistake, but the wolf’s bane was preventing even that.
Suddenly, they stopped moving, and she was tumbled out of the burlap. She collapsed onto a wooden floor, her legs refusing to work. She looked around dazedly, trying to take in her surroundings which appeared to be a small, wooden cabin. It was clean, she realized. Spotless, in fact.
Jana blinked again as the edges of her sight darkened. She had time to whimper one last time before the drug dragged her under.
Gabe stood there in shock, watching helplessly as the wolf they had thought was Jacob, a mangy old beast from their old pack, passed out and had shifted into the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He turned to Adrian, who just stared, his mouth open.
“Well, that’s a surprise.”
“A gorgeous one.”
Adrian shot him a disapproving look, but Gabe had seen the look of desire flash through Adrian’s light grey eyes, just as he had felt his own body shift, tensing. Adrian moved to one of the arm chairs flanking the small fireplace, grabbing a blanket that had been thrown over its back and wrapped it around her.
Gabe had to fight back the possessive growl that tried to rip out of his chest as Adrian got close to the girl, but instead turned his back, even more shocked at his reaction. Lust and heat raged through his body, thoughts of her sweet thighs wrapped around him, sinking into her delicious body…
With a snarl, he cut off the thoughts. No one had ever affected him this way. The girl was unconscious, for Christ’s sake! Not to mention that they had caught the wrong wolf. Gabe stiffened his spine, trying to get control of his wayward body before turning back around.
“What the hell was she even doing out there?” He asked, not really expecting an answer. Adrian just shrugged, not giving one as he carried their unexpected prisoner to the nearest bedroom. His bedroom. Gabe shook the thought off but it was impossible as he followed Adrian in and saw her, laying in his bed, her long dark hair cascading across his pillow.
Adrian shot him another questioning look before grabbing one of Gabe’s t-shirts and as quickly as possible slipped it over her head, easily holding her up with one arm to slide it over her nakedness.
“She’s so small.” Adrian said, then blushed as if he hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but Gabe caught the hint of awe that had tinged his voice. The heat that was mirrored in his own, he knew. Adrian cleared his throat, pulling the blanket up and over her, hesitating just a bit too long as he stared down at her face before making himself turn away. As they both forced themselves to walk out of the room, Gabe didn’t miss Adrian’s long, pained exhale as he closed the door firmly behind them.
Chapter 3
She woke up wanting. Dreams had flooded her sleep, heated dreams with two shadowy figures touching her, surrounding her, making her ache. She inhaled deeply, drawing the scent of them into her lungs. It was still there, lingering, inescapable. She turned onto her back, blinking her eyes open as they adjusted to the thick darkness. Jana shot bolt upright as the memories flooded back.
The fight. Her father’s death. Her escape, and then being trapped. Not by Dalton, but by the two mysterious shifters that had filled her dreams. She shook her head. No, that wasn’t right. They had trapped her, captured her. Why would she have dreamed of them? And like that?
She stood, intent on getting out of there. Jana made her way to the door on silent feet. She drew on her wolf senses, and found the door with no problem as her eyes adjusted. There were no windows in the small, but neat, room. It was the only way out. Her gaze penetrated the darkness with ease, and she crept to the door, listening. She didn’t hear a single sound. Slowly releasing the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, she tried the knob, surprised to find it turning smoothly, the door opening without a hitch. Why hadn’t it been locked?
She didn’t have time to wonder as she threw the door open to find her captors still there, sitting silently in the light of the flickering fire, watching her. Her breath hitched, her heart catching, and then racing painfully as she froze under those powerful twin gazes.
Without a second thought, Jana threw herself toward the front door, realizing too late that she would have to get through both of them to reach it. If she had to fight, she would. Her father had taught her well how to protect herself, how to fight. She was small for a wolf, she knew that, but she had learned how to use that to her advantage.
The light eyed one came at her first, but his movements were slow, hesitating, as if he had been caught by surprise. Jana easily ducked under his long, reaching arms, turning mid-step to catch the other one in the shin. She grinned at his yelp of pain as she pivoted yet again, her foot catching the other at the back of his knees, setting him off balance.
Jana was almost to the door when a hard body slammed into her from behind, strong arms wrapping around her, and dragging her back into the middle of the room.
“Let go of me, you…you brute!”
“Brute, am I?”
Jana savagely kicked out behind her, landing a satisfying blow but it did nothing to deter her captor.
“Yes! Now, let me go! You have the wrong wolf!”
“Yeah, we figured that one out real quick.”
She looked behind her, trying to see who had a hold of her, but his grip on her was too tight. She couldn’t escape. Terror tried to take hold then, but she pushed it down, instead fueling the anger raging through her, using that to give her strength.
The other man walked up to her, and she couldn’t stem the flood of heat at the remembered dreams as his scent washed over her. He stared down at her with eyes so dark they looked almost black, except that she could see flashes of copper shining in the firelight. Long dark hair curled around broad shoulders and heavily muscled chest.
Jana couldn’t help the way her eyes roved over him, drinking him in. She forced herself to look away. What was wrong with her?
He reached out, dragging one callused fingertip along her jaw, tilting her head back up until her gaze was once more on him. She snapped at his finger and he pulled it away quickly with a chuckle.
“Hey, now. None of that.” His dark eyes were warm on hers. So very warm. It was suddenly hard to draw breath with him staring at her like that. Like he wanted to eat her all up.
“Let go of me! I demand that you release me!”
“Well, you’re not
really in any position to make demands at the moment.”
“I don’t know who you think you are. You’re crazy if you think you can just kidnap innocent wolves…”
“I am not crazy–.”
“You obviously are. This whole thing is crazy…”
“Stop saying that! I am not craz–.”
“No, you’re bloody insane! There is no way that you–.”
He cut off her words forcefully, the only way he could think of. He kissed her. Gabe had just meant to shut her up, but the moment his lips touched hers that all changed. His whole world changed, shifting. His mouth fastened over hers, and for the briefest of moments he forgot his fucked up life, his past, the ever present pain and rage. All of it gone in her kiss.
What surprised him most was her response to him. He had expected her to fight, to scream, to try and bite him. But she did none of those things. Instead, she melted in Adrian’s arms, still wrapped around her but now in an embrace. He knew he should stop, he knew it wasn’t fair. But despite himself, he deepened the kiss, his entire body tensing painfully at the breathy moan that escaped her. He drank it in. He drank her in. Her sweetness, her innocence. It was that that finally had him pulling back.
He groaned at the sight of her. Her pale cheeks flushed, her lips kiss swollen, and the way she was standing there, leaning back against Adrian’s body, so much bigger than her own. The sight of her being held by the other man sent a bolt of lightning shooting through him. They had shared women before, they always had. It was a bond they had between them.
The woman slowly blinked open heavy eyelids, staring at him with the brightest blue eyes, like twin diamonds shining with a heat that drew him back to her. Suddenly, she shoved at him. Her strength was surprising, but still she barely moved him. He took a step back, and then another, trying to get a hold of his body. His emotions going haywire inside him.
She pulled away from Adrian and he let her go easily. She turned to stare at the blond haired man, and then back at him, her gaze confused, terrified, but underneath that, a fire still burned. It was the fear in her blue eye that cut him, and he took a step forward.
“Stop,” She held a hand out toward him. “Just, stop, okay?”
“Okay.” Gabe sighed, pausing.
She looked around, for the first time seeing the cabin before turning back to him. “Where am I? Who are you?”
Chapter 4
They sat around the fire, Adrian on the rug on the floor to her right and the other one, Gabriel, on her left. Jana stared from one to other, still shocked at what they had told her, but even more so by her intense reaction. To them both.
So it was true. She had been right. They were the ‘ghosts of the mountain’ but they were so much more. They had told her a heartbreaking story of loss and betrayal. Gabe’s brother, Alexandre, had gotten into a fight with one of the more unsavory members of Gabe’s pack. Things had gone too far, and Alex had been killed. In a rage, Gabe had attacked his brother’s killer, but at the time, he had been a favorite of their pack leader, and Gabe and the other wolf that had attacked, Adrian, had been forced to leave, to go rogue.
There was more to the story than that, she was sure, but she didn’t ask. She couldn’t. The sad story had brought of memories of her own father’s death, her own loss. She had told them the bare minimum of what had happened when they had asked why she had been out in the mountains.
Her stomach growled loudly, interrupting the heavy silence that had fallen between them. Something strange had happened as she had listened to them speak, they had gone from prisoner and captors to simply…friends. Maybe that was a little too strong. More like comrades. Those who had experienced something terrible and tragic, and had survived. Or was trying to, anyways, Jana added to herself.
The hunger noise sounded again, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything in almost two days, when most wolves had to eat twice as much as normal humans to provide enough energy for the shift.
“I’m starving.” The words popped out without her meaning them to, but the other wolves just looked at her, then at each other. Finally, Adrian cleared his throat.
“We don’t keep food in the cabin, just in case it attracts unwanted…” He paused as Gabe shot him a deadly look under a dark slash of brows.
“Uh, right. Anyways. We just hunt. There’s plenty of food if you know where to look.”
Gabe cocked an eyebrow at her. “What do you say, Jana. Are you up for a hunt?”
The way he said it had her insides trembling. With more confidence than she felt, she tilted her head to one side, her long waves sliding across her shoulders, before she grinned back at him.
“Always.”
They ran in the moonlight, the warm, night air surrounding them like an embrace as Jana ran just a step behind Gabe and Adrian. The shift had been intense, she could still feel both men’s stares on her body as she had shed the large t-shirt she had been wearing, that she had discovered Adrian had clothed her in. It belonged to Gabriel. His scent had invaded her mind, her dreams, and her body, and a part of her had been sad to take it off.
But another part of her craved the simplicity of becoming the wolf. Everything always seemed more black and white, easier to understand.
She loped after them, easily keeping pace, and she realized they were going slower for her sake. Not about to have any of that, she leapt forward with a push of her strong back legs until she was running next to them, one on each side. Jana relished the rightness of the moment. Running free under the moonlight with the two wolves surrounding her.
She looked over at Gabe, a jet black wolf with dark, shining copper eyes and she swore she saw him grin back at her before playfully nipping at her foreleg. She jumped back, but Adrian was there, ready to pounce when she got to close. If she had been wearing her human skin, they would have heard the peal of laughter that sounded in her mind, but somehow, they seemed to know.
The loped down the shallow cliff towards a hidden stream, and Jana slowed, following their lead until she saw the sudden movement. She immediately changed her path, creeping towards it. It was another mouse, a little bigger than the last one, but before she could pounce, Gabe was there, stopping her. He came close, dwarfing her with his massive body, but the way he moved around her made her feel safe, protected. As if he thought she was made of porcelain.
Teasingly, she drew him closer, waiting patiently until he was in just the right spot, and then she pounced. She hit her mark, sending him stumbling backwards, tossing his head in delight before crouching and leaping after her. They playfully nipped at each other, and each time he got close she felt a rush like nothing she’d ever experienced. Heady, like warm honey pouring through her.
Within moments, Adrian joined them, three big fish grasped in his wet, grinning muzzle. They feasted there, under the light of the moon, and Jana thought that she could live like that forever. For the first time since it had happened, she was able to forget for a moment the pain of losing her father, and her pack. There in the darkness, with Gabriel and Adrian, she felt almost…happy.
It didn’t take long for them to devour the meal, and the lure of the clean, sparkling stream gurgling happily beside them became too much for Jana. Without thinking, she dove into the depths, shifting as she came up, luxuriating in the warm water. It was shallower than she expected, barely coming up to her waist. She stood, for the first time noticing the silence that had fallen around her.
Jana looked up just in time to see Gabe and Adrian, both shifting into their human form, wading into the water. She noticed their gazes, one light and one dark, locked on her body, and it sent a wave of tingling sensation crashing through her. It was a part of their species, their culture, to be comfortable in their own skin, and with nudity, but for the first time, Jana felt a prickle of something else. Not embarrassment, just awareness.
The keen awareness that she was completely unclothed, and so were they. Her body flashed with heat so intense she was surprised the water around her did
n’t start boiling.
Gabe reached her first, but Adrian wasn’t far behind. Their hands were tentative at first, questioning, but she couldn’t find the answers. She knew she should stop them, but there was something so right, so perfect about being caught between their big, hard bodies, that she couldn’t.
“Jana,” Adrian said her name like a prayer, “…love, if you want us to stop, tell us now. I don’t think, I don’t know how much more I could take if…”
She looked up at Adrian, her mouth opened to speak, although she wasn’t sure what she would have said because before she could, Gabe framed her face with both of his large hands, turning her head to face him, stepping so close he could wedge one large thigh between her own. Instinct took over and she arched her back, pushing her hips harder into his and rubbing her center against his leg, desperate for more friction, for more of him.
“Please, Jana.” Gabe whispered the words roughly against her ear as his hands slid down her sending a wave of electrical shocks from where ever he touched straight to her center until they grasped her hips, helping her to ride higher on his leg. Adrian’s hands were there too, and it was impossible to distinguish whose hands were doing what as her eyes slid close, her lids too heavy. She groaned at the exquisite sensation.
“Say yes.” The word was hissed roughly against her neck just before a set of lips followed, kissing and biting at the most sensitive part, right at the curve. She paused for a moment, searching inward, and was shocked at the savage glee she sensed from her wolf half.
“Yes…” it was so quiet as it slipped out from between her lips she thought they might not have heard, but their sensitive wolf hearing picked it up, and it was like a dam broke over her. Their hands were everywhere, driving her mad, teasing and touching, but never enough, never exactly where she needed it.
