by Jessica Snow
Chapter 13
Kat absolutely loved her new job. Better pay, coworkers who largely left her alone to do her work, and free samples. Her work hours were sometimes nocturnal, which Kat found herself liking more and more with each passing day. She had never been a morning person, and she liked having days off in case she needed to run errands during office hours. There was only one problem—she could not stop stealing meat.
It was everywhere. She was surrounded by fresh, tender animal flesh morning, noon and night. Beef, pork, chicken, turkey, mutton, buffalo, game meat...her appetite for it knew no bounds. She would often stare at it as it was rolled out before her to be chopped up, salivating over the thought of when she would next be able to eat it.
Another problem was that the smell of the factory had become absolutely overwhelming to Kat’s suddenly sensitive nose, driving her hunger to frenzied states that she found very hard to control in front of her co-workers. To make matters worse, each day it seemed her sense of smell got stronger than the day before.
She found herself being able to smell the beer on her father’s breath as soon as she walked into their house, though he was sitting in another room. It wasn’t long before she knew what sort of meat he had eaten and when he had eaten it. She could also smell which body wash that McKenzie had washed with even if she was locked away inside her bedroom. But this strong sense of smell also had disgusting drawbacks: her nose was also open to the smell from the garbage can, to anything going off in the fridge, to her dad’s gas attacks and her sister’s menstrual cycle.
At least at the plant, none of that was a problem. She much preferred the delicious smell of animal meat to be found everywhere here. But again—she enjoyed it so much that she could not stop stealing it. It seemed an awful way to repay Liam for helping her out of her jobless predicament, but she could not help herself. She needed it—worse than a growing teenager. The craving filled her waking hours and her dreams. Kat had to have it—and that meant she just needed to evade getting caught.
Her father had expressed his concerns one night when she had brought in a sack of beef cuts and set it down on the table. “Good Lord, Kat,” Big Mike had growled, his eyes bright with hunger, his belly growling as he stood salivating over the night’s haul. “Where are you getting all this meat from? It’s enough to feed a den of a hundred wolves!”
“The factory gives away its leftovers and I just pick out the best of it,” Kat had lied, her stomach growling almost as loud as her fathers. “Anything we don’t take home goes in the trash.”
“Well, it stinks to high hell,” McKenzie had remarked, her left hand pinched over her nose while she held onto a cold cup of yogurt in her right. Her younger sister had seemed to be in much better spirits after their talk from nights back and was now socializing with her small family—complete with her usual snark. Unfortunately, unlike Kat, she hadn’t developed a sudden appetite for meat. “And I wish you would stop bringing it home every night. I can smell it all the way in my room.” With that, she turned and walked out, muttering something about “stupid meat eaters”, with Rosie hot on her heels.
Kat and Big Mike had certainly enjoyed their big meal that night. But every occasionally, she had noticed him glancing at her with concern in his eyes.
Now all Kat could think about was how she was going to last until the end of her shift without going insane and eating all the meat put in front of her. Like these ribs, she was splitting. God damn, they smelled good...
“What are you doing?” a deep voice asked.
Kat froze a slab of raw meat inches away from her mouth. Shit.
Her co-worker that she worked with most often, Clive, a dirty-blonde hippy-looking fellow with full, fuzzy sideburns, was staring at her with an odd expression. His apron was spotted with blood from the meat, and he held a cleaver in his hand. With the lean muscles of an athlete, he was a fine chopper. Not a bad guy either, but right now he was giving her a very skeptical look that made her nervous.
“Uh, I was just smelling it,” Kat lied. “It smelled like it was going bad.”
“Huh.” Clive motioned at the slab. “Give it here.”
When Kat did not obey his order right away, Clive stepped forward and took the meat from her hands. As he got in close, Kat caught a whiff of animal. That was the one strange thing about all her co-workers—they all smelled canine-like. At first, Kat had thought it was just all the meat, but whenever she was in the break room with her fellow workers, the smell got stronger. Not only that, they all had meat on their breath. It made her wonder if they were all stealing too.
Kat suspected they all must have been meat lovers like her, and that’s why they worked at the factory. She never seen them actually eating meat, though, let alone stealing it from the prep line. It was a mystery.
He took a sniff of the meat and snorted derisively. “Smells absolutely fine to me. Get your nose checked.” He tossed it on the table in front of them and finished the job of splitting it up in a few hard strokes.
She sighed. Goddamn it, Kat, she scolded herself, don’t get yourself fired from this job too.
Since leaving her old job, she had found it a miracle that Thomas hadn’t filed a police report on her. In fact, he’d even left a message on her phone telling her he wanted her to come back to work. But there was no way Kat was quitting her new job and going back to work for that chauvinist pig. She couldn’t imagine coming crawling back, apologizing and going back to the same underpaid grind, while watching him screw around on his wife all day with that lazy, lying tramp. She hadn’t even bothered to call him back to refuse.
Anyway, this new job was too good to walk away from. It paid better, Liam was near, and glorious, delicious meat was...everywhere.
Kat chuckled nervously as she hungrily eyed the leftover bits of meat on the butchering table that she wanted to pop into her mouth like bonbons. “Yeah, I suppose I should.”
Later, near lunch time, she could no longer contain herself. She had to have a bite.
“Hey Clive,” said Kat to her tablemate, who was busy chopping into a chunk of pig meat.
He paused in his chopping and turned to face her. Speckles of blood covered his safety goggles and lower jaw. “Yea?”
“I heard Liam needs you on the second floor. They have some extra tough buffalo there that needs cutting.” Kat cringed at her thin lie, half-thinking Clive would call her out on it.
Wiping at the sweat on his brow, Clive sighed with relief. “Thank god. I was hoping to do a real job today.” He nodded over at his half-finished work. “You finish this up for me, ‘kay? I’ll go knock it out of the park and be right back.” He walked off, whistling some cheery tune, and as he brushed past Kat, she caught a whiff of canine again.
“Okay.” Kat immediately felt bad about using Liam for her bold-faced lie. He had helped her by giving her a great job, and she continued to repay him with treachery.
Since working at her new job, the two had hardly spoken once she had gotten past her quick training period. But that wasn’t to say they went without seeing each other. Kat often caught the golden-haired hunk staring at her from a balcony overlooking the factory floor. Sometimes she would wave up at him and other times she would glare, half hating him for getting her hopes up about being together and then dashing it against the rocks.
The anger of that memory eased her guilt a little. The smell of the meat and the growling in her stomach was overwhelming.
Forgive me, Liam.
Making sure no one was paying attention, Kat grabbed a stocking sack and stuffed as much raw meat as she could into it. She then made her way to one of the storage rooms, quickly locking herself inside and turning off the lights.
“Mmm,” she groaned as she stuffed fistfuls of the raw meat into her mouth. “This is so good.” It was also insane. Raw pork was dangerous. It could harbor parasites that could sicken or kill her but it tasted amazing. She couldn’t bring herself to care about the hazards to her health...or her job.
&nb
sp; For the next ten minutes, she stuffed her face with raw, bloody meat, unable to contain her hunger. She was so engaged with gorging herself that she didn’t hear the keys jingling outside. She barely even registered the door being snatched open and the light switch being turned on.
“Well, well, look at what we have here,” said a deep, sexy voice. “A meat thief right under my nose.”
She looked up slowly, her lips flecked with blood and a wad of raw meat in her hand. Oh hell.
Chapter 14
“I always knew there was something special about you,” said Liam. It was just after nightfall. Liam was leading her by the hand through a thick copse of trees on that sat on the outskirts of the Greyson factory grounds. She followed numbly, still wondering why she still had her job...and why he was smiling. When she had been caught with her mouth stuffed full of bloody meat, Kat had thought for sure Liam was going to fire her on the spot and fly into a rage. Instead, he had confused her by acting totally delighted at catching her in the act.
It was odd, since most people would have been both scared and angry. Not Liam. He had been overcome by excitement, telling her to wait around after closing hours so he could show her something that was very important.
Kat had been confused. Shouldn’t Liam have been grossed out by seeing her mouth dripping with blood from raw meat? Feared for her sanity? Worried about the people Kat had been working around because maybe she was some crazy meat-eating psycho that would start on people next?
Nope, not him. His eyes were bright with excitement. “I would have never thought you were this special.”
“I don’t understand,” Kat muttered with confusion.
“It all will be explained soon.” He beamed. “I promise.”
Kat looked around as she hastily avoided tripping over a felled tree branch. The damned thing still managed to land a scratch on her leg. “Where in the hell are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” Liam replied cryptically.
Several minutes later, they reached a clearing that had several large stones in the middle of it. It was etched with ancient writing and symbols that Kat did not recognize.
Liam turned to face her, the gold specks in his eyes catching the wan moonlight, and smiled. “You are special.”
“Okay,” Kat said with exasperation, “you’ve said that a thousand times already. Can you please just tell me what the hell you’re talking about?” Kat was wondering about Liam’s sanity. Any normal person would have called the mental ward after witnessing someone stuffing her their face with hazardous meat that hadn’t been cooked.
Liam frowned, looking hurt. “I did not think my compliments meant so little to you.”
Kat crossed her arms over her breasts. “Well, forgive me if I don’t put too much stock into them. I recall some nights back you salivating over my body and telling me how hot and sexy I am, yet when I try to take you up on the apparent offer, you tell me that you’re taken. You run hot and cold on me, Liam. I never know what to expect.”
He sighed. “I’ve told you, I’m in a relationship that is beyond my control and is very complicated.”
Kat rolled her eyes. “Sure.” The man had yet to explain to her what he meant by complicated, or why he couldn’t just get out of the betrothal if he hated it so much. Although, she hadn’t given him much of an opportunity to do so.
She had seen him talking to a rail-thin, twitchy blonde chick up on the balcony at the factory a couple of times. If that was his fiancée, she at least understood his distaste a little. The girl walked around with a look in her eye like she couldn’t be trusted around small children—or sharp objects.
Liam was unfazed by her rudeness. “But what you have just revealed to me has given me hope that maybe something could be worked out in my favor.”
His words made no sense. “What did I reveal? That I’m some meat-eating maniac?”
Liam shook his head and a smile spread over his face. “No.”
“Then what—?”
Liam’s blue eyes seemed to catch fire from the specks of gold inside them. “That you are a wolf.”
Kat laughed in his face. “Pardon me?”
Liam began circling her as if she was a piece of meat. “You have been angry lately, but you don’t know why. You have had strange dreams that make no sense no matter how much you try to make them do so. You’ve started shedding...a lot, though you’re not growing bald. Your senses are enhanced; your smelling, your hearing, and your strength—”
“Okay stop,” Kat said sharply. “You’re starting to really freak me out.” Is he reading my damn mind?
Liam paused and raised an eyebrow. “Am I right?”
Kat snorted. “You’re fucking crazy.”
Liam raised his head to the starry sky and laughed, resuming his circling. “Most of all, you’ve been very hungry. Oh, not just hungry for any old thing. No, you’re hungry for meat, any meat. So hungry for it that you would do anything to sate your insatiable hunger...even going as far as to steal from me and my family.”
Kat went incredibly still. How could Liam possibly know all these things? It really was like he was reading her mind, or had secret insight into her private life. “It’s not possible,” she whispered.
Liam stopped directly in front of her and nodded. “It is. It is because you are a wolf. A shapeshifter that can change at will and who is most powerful when the full moon shines. You need the meat to fuel your changes, your strength, your healing capabilities.”
Kat shook her head with denial. “You’ve watched too many movies.”
The golden specks in Liam’s blue eyes had taken over, and now they glowed a soft yellow, unnerving her. “Yet it is true.”
He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. His flesh was warm to the touch and his heart thrummed against her fingertips like the beat of a war drum. “There is a whole undiscovered world out there Kat—a world that most humans never get to experience. But you, Kat, are very lucky, because you will get to experience this unknown world and all the wonders contained therein.”
Worried by his sudden rapid heartbeat and glowing eyes, Kat pulled away, snatching her hand away from his chest. “What you’re saying makes absolutely no sense.” And how are his eyes changing and glowing like that? she thought, not having the nerve to ask.
Liam stepped forward, and for a moment, the smell of canine became overwhelming.
The crunch of leaves sounded under Kat’s heel as she backpedaled from the advancing man, who now reminded her of a predator stalking its prey. “Get away.”
Liam simply smiled at her distress, his white teeth looking extra sharp. “Are you ready?”
Kat paused, confused. “Ready for what?”
His predatory grin became wider. “Don’t flip out when I do this.”
“Do what—holy shit!”
Liam had slipped out of his clothes, revealing a body that could have only been possessed by a god. Rippling abs, powerful, well-muscled thighs and an ass made in heaven, his body was a mouth-watering feast to Kat’s eyes.
To add to the ridiculousness of it all, he was hung like a horse.
Turned on and scared at the same time, Kat pressed a hand to her chest. “Liam, what are you—”
Letting out a startled shriek, Kat reared back in surprise, nearly falling onto the leaf-covered ground as the sound of popping bones filled the clearing. In seconds, Liam’s body morphed into a huge, golden wolf.
The wolf let out a low growl as it came forward to the quivering Kat. It looked up at her with its golden eyes, the same golden eyes that had so enchanted her. It didn’t lunge, it didn’t bite...it just stood there, watching her.
“Oh, my god, this can’t be happening,” Kat whispered, her eyes so wide they felt like they would pop out of her head.
But it was. The wolf held still, patient.
Slowly, she reached down and touched the thing on the top of the head. It was firm and furry. It was real.
It’s true. “You’re real,” s
he whispered with awe.
She could scarcely believe it. Not one to believe in fairy-tales, Kat would have never dreamed such a thing was possible. She pinched herself to make sure she was awake and was rewarded with a sharp pain.
The wolf seemed to nod, and then the sound of cracking bones filled the air and Liam once again stood before her, naked as the day he was born. “I told you,” he said, “but you needed to see it to believe it.”
Kat tried her best not to let her gaze drift to his groin. It wasn’t easy. “I knew strange things were happening to me, but I would have never thought it would be something as crazy as this!”
Liam gave her a gorgeous grin. “Well you know what they say; the truth is stranger than fiction.”
Then, much to Kat’s disappointment, Liam began slipping back into his clothes with his back turned to her. “I have a question, Kat,” Liam asked as he stuffed his right leg into his jeans.
Kat could only stare at his ass.
“Kat?”
She tore her eyes away. “Huh?”
“I have a question to ask.”
“What?”
“Have you ever been...bitten?”
Kat scratched at her neck. The damn mosquitoes were out in full force. “I got bitten by a black widow once—”
“I’m talking about by a wolf.”
A wolf? “Uh, no. I think I would remember that.”
“All right then.” He frowned, then went on. “Who is your father?”
Her eyes wandered back over to his butt for the last glimpse before he pulled his jeans on over it. “Big Mike.”
Liam got his jeans the rest of the way on and turned to face her. “Big Mike?”
“Michael Headley. He’s a tree cutter and part-time mechanic.” Kat frowned. “Why do you want to know?”
Quickly shouldering his shirt over his torso, Liam replied, “Because unless you were bitten, the power of the shifter is passed down through the bloodlines. By decree, we wolves must be aware of all clans and packs that live in the area, and I have never heard of your family name.” He looked at her. “Did you just move here recently?”
