by Sicily Duval
When I couldn’t run anymore, I stopped. I leaned my hands on my knees, trying to breathe around the searing heat that twisted through my lungs. My legs trembled. I was in a part of the forest I hadn’t been in before. It was live with birds, singing a welcome song to the dawn.
The light was already changing. Instead of the inky black that colored the trees into shadows of the night, it was a silvery gray now, making the forest look like something out of a story book. I knew I had to get home, but there was something magical in the air, gluing me down, keeping me there.
I noticed a dark shadow in between the trees. At first I thought it was a clump of underbrush, something like a handful of berry bushes. They were scattered throughout the forest. But then the shadow moved. I was rooted to the spot, staring at the bulk of darkness that moved slowly through the trees. I strained my ears, but it wasn’t making a sound. Somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice told me to run, to get out of there. But there was a magnetic quality to the air, something that bound me to the forest and kept me there.
The shadow moved closer to me, and I started making out it’s against the brighter light of the impending dawn. The black mass took shape. Strong shoulders, thick brown fur, and a muzzle.
It was the biggest bear I had ever seen.
When it saw me, it blew hot air through its nostrils, no doubt picking up my scent. Its lips curled back, revealing a row of sharp, pointed teeth. I had to run. I knew I had to. But I was stuck. It dawned on me that the magnetic attraction, the inability to run, came from this bear. It wasn’t an ordinary bear. It used magic to catch its prey.
And I was going to be the next meal.
The bear roared a sound that rumbled form the deep recesses of its bowels, and tearing through the forest. It whipped around me, every fiber in my body numb with fear.
When the roar stopped, everything was quiet. The birds had stopped singing. An eerie silence filled the forest, thick and palpable. I couldn’t breathe. Shrewd black eyes stared at me from the mass of brown hair.
The bear moved toward me, so fast it closed the gap between us in less than a second. It towered over me, pinning me against a tree. I gasped for air, the magic wrapping around me like a wet blanket. I couldn’t breathe. This was the end. This was where I was going to die.
But then the bear started to change. The hair on its body shrank away from its skin. The muzzle shrank, and teeth blunted. The black eyes held my gaze all the time, but it became smaller and smaller. I was riveted. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the transformation.
I’d grown up with mystical creatures, but I’d never actually seen a shift.
And when I blinked, it was over. The bear had shifted into a man. And not just any man.
It was Donald Crowe.
He stood, his body still towering over mine, but as a man’s now, large and capable. He wasn’t wearing much, only a torn pair of pants. I wondered vaguely where it went when he was a bear. He stood over me, panting. His eyes were dark and black and mesmerizing, and he looked at me, into me.
The atmosphere was still charged, but with something else now. Something hot and heavy. My hand moved by itself, without me remembering that I told it to. I put it on the bear skin on his chest. It was hot, slick with sweat. His chest rose and fell under my fingers. Something passed between us.
He leaned in, and kissed me. His lips hard and strong against mine. The power of his magic surged through me, but not to paralyze anymore. It was strength, surging through me. I wasn’t prey, not now. I wondered when the last time was that I felt like that. If I ever did
His tongue pushed into my mouth, and he pushed his body up against mine. My hands slid up and around his neck, my fingers knotting in thick brown hair on his head. Somewhere at the back of my mind I was telling myself I was being a fool, I was kissing a stranger. I had a mate. I shouldn’t have been doing this. But the urgency in my body, the ache to be consumed by this man, overrode any other thought, and I let it go.
3
“What’s wrong with you?” Lashan watched me at breakfast. I was disorganized and uncoordinated. Nothing like my usual self. I tried making myself a smoothie as I always did, but after I sliced open my finger with a knife and dropped the milk container on the floor, I gave up. That wasn’t what had Lashan suspicious though.
I’d put a plate of fresh rabbit on his plate. I’d caught it the moment the sun was down.
I hated killing. The smell of fresh blood, as much as it tweaked my appetite like it would for any other vampire, also nauseated me. I didn’t like taking a life. But Lashan needed a wife to take care of him. He deserved that much from me.
“I thought you’d be happy,” I said. “You were complaining so much last night.”
He frowned and watched me for long enough to make me squirm, but I put on a blank face and cleaned up the milk on the floor.
Eventually Lashan stopped and started eating. He made little grunts as he did, and it grated me. I push the irritation away. Lashan was happy. That was what mattered.
When he left for work, I didn’t walk to the bedroom and change my appearance so I would fit into a business world I was hiding from him. I fetched the mop and cleaned the kitchen, polishing until it sparkled. Next I tackled the lounge and worked my way through the house. The bathroom, the office, the bedroom, everything Lashan thought I was doing every day.
I didn’t need to go to the office. I had been wrong all these years to go behind Lashan’s back. I told myself it wasn’t because I felt guilty. Donald had just opened my eyes to who I really should be. I squeezed my eyes shut, and ignored the flutter in my stomach. I felt his hands on my skin again, his lips against my neck. His strong body covering mine and reducing me to a trembling puddle of urges and cravings.
I shook my head. No, not that. I didn’t want that.
I managed to stay away from the office for three days before Charlene phoned and asked what was wrong.
“I’m sick,” I lied. “I’ve been in bed with a terrible virus.”
“IS there anything I can do?” she asked.
I shook my head to convince myself. “I’ll be alright.”
“When are you coming back?”
I had to at some point. Even if it was just to wrap up the loose ends. I couldn’t stay on, of course. That just wouldn’t do. “I’ll be back after the weekend.”
The weekend was hot and heavy, with nights weighed down with humidity and low clouds that only threatened with rain, but nothing came of it. The entire time I was hot and bothered, and I struggled to be the model wife around Lashan’s friends. I found their conversations boring, pointless, self-centered. I found their company empty. And when I looked at Lashan it was like I was looking at a stranger.
When Monday finally rolled round, I was relieved to see him walking out of the door. I felt like I’d been smothered.
The moment he was gone, I walked to the bedroom and went through the motions I’d gone through for four years. I got dressed, did my make-up, changed myself into the woman they knew at the office, and walked out the door to meet the shuttle on the corner.
“Good to see you back,” the doorman said and smiled at me. I was painfully aware of his lack of fangs. Sometimes I wondered how so many predators could get along without a fight.
I kept a sharp eye out, but to my relief I didn’t see Donald anywhere. Charlene hugged me when I stepped into my cubicle and handed me a stack of papers. She’d been covering my shift while I was gone.
“Thanks for this,” I said. “What’s been happening?”
“Oh, the normal. Ring is out on to kill, as always. He’s talking about taking down the next company. I don’t know how he sleeps at night.”
“What are the other directors saying about it?” Mostly the directors didn’t really agree with Ring but he was the boss so they let him dictate to them. But now and then there was a ripple when one of them actually said something.
“Oh, they’re okay about it. I think they’re too scared
to cross him, if you ask me. Only that new guy, Donald.” My skin broke out in shivers at the mention of his name, and my stomach did an involuntary flip. “He’s been a grumpy old bear.”
I smiled at the analogy. Charlene had no idea. The speaker on her desk went off and we heard it all the way across the hall. Charlene rolled her eyes.
“Better go, that’s Ring summoning me.”
I nodded and watched her walk away.
The day went on without much excitement, and towards the end of it I fell back into my normal routine. I loved my job, and I hated the idea that I would leave it soon. It was an escape from my life, and I knew I needed one. The few days at home had gotten to me more than I thought. Being back in the office was like breathing fresh air again.
“I was wondering when you’d decide to crawl out of your hole again,” a deep voice rumbled behind me. I was alone in the copy room, trying to get the damn machine to work. I spun around, seeing Donald in the door. He blocked the whole thing with his frame.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I said in a calm voice, even though my heart was going wild and I suddenly felt short of breath.
“Where were you?” he asked like I hadn’t said that. I turned my back on him and focused on the machine again. A wave of heat surged from him and circled me. In predator-prey relationship the lesser didn’t turn its back. But I didn’t see him as my superior. That morning in the woods he’d changed all that by making me an equal.
I forced the thought out of my head. I wasn’t an equal, not if I wanted this to go away. I closed my eyes and steeled myself, and I turned around again.
“I was home, doing my duty. As a wife.”
If Donald had any kind of thought about the last bit, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked more amused than anything else, and his eyes traveled slowly over my body. It made me feel exposed. And at the same time it made me want him to reach out to me and touch me. My skin screamed for him again.
I pushed it away.
“I am busy,” I said, hoping he would get the hint that I wanted him to leave. He didn’t. Instead he leaned against the doorpost and jammed his hands into his pockets.
“Come out to dinner with me,” he said.
I couldn’t believe he was being that straightforward.
“I’m married,” I said. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“It didn’t feel that way in the forest. I distinctly remember—“
“Will you shut up?” I said, trying to look around him to see if anyone heard. I felt a blush creeping up from my collar. I ignored the flame that ignited inside of me when he referred back to our interlude and crossed my hands over my chest like I was trying to cover up. “That was a mistake. I don’t even know what happened there.” Donald straightened himself out and took a step towards me. I could feel his presence like a physical force. I swallowed and focused on the words I was trying to say. “I am married with a husband that deserves my loyalty.” Donald took another step forward. He was so close now I could smell the cologne on his skin, the animal scent that clung to his skin, the wilderness that was a smell that belonged only to him.
“Don’t,” I whispered, because I knew I wasn’t going to stop him. He reached back without looking and knocked the door so that it swung shut. The lock turned by itself, like he’d locked it with him mind, and I could feel the tingle of his magic in the air.
“You can’t use your magic on me,” I said. I’d felt it in the forest, He’d hunted with the magic that trapped his prey in a force so he didn’t have to go through the trouble of the hunt. “It may have worked before—“
“I never used my magic on you,” he said. His voice was deep, a low growl in the back of his throat. He inched ever closer to me as he spoke, and I felt my resolve weaken.
“In the forest,” I tried again. “You made me…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. His face was so close to mine, his black eyes staring into me, and I lost my train of thought.
“I didn’t nothing in the forest that you didn’t want me to do. Just like you want me to do now.”
He was reading my mind. I felt offended.
“You can’t just read my mind, that’s invasion of privacy,” I said but my voice didn’t sound nearly as defensive as I wanted it to. Instead it was thin, more of a question than a statement. I had to tell him to stop. He had to get out of my head, because the fact was that my body wanted his. Every fiber of my being cried out for him, the magnetic pull so strong I couldn’t fight it. I shifted to the other leg, my thighs rubbing against each other. It didn’t help my cause at all.
I was hot for him and his body so close pushed me over the edge from want to need. I glanced around the copy room. The blinds on the windows were all down and turned so no one could look in.
Donald reached out, putting his hand on my hip, and pulled me to him. He kissed me, and I didn’t hesitate or try to stop him. I kissed him back, fiercely, my body betraying the hunger I’d tried so hard to hide with my words.
So much for staying away so long. It was like time hadn’t passed at all.
He leaned against me with his body. He was strong and lean, and I could feel the muscles ripple under his skin, through his shirt, when he pushed me back against the machine. I surrendered myself to him. He was demanding, and I submitted. Not because he was a wild predator and our hierarchy demanded it, but because I wanted it. I wanted to be his.
He knew what I wanted. I could feel his mind inside mine, his conscious mind probing the corners of mine. His hands slid over my body, tracing the contours of it. I was against the copy machine – I couldn’t remember how that happened – and his body was against mine, all over me. It was exactly where I wanted to be.
He burned with intensity when his hands found spots on my body Lashan hadn’t touched in years. His eyes were open and he looked at me, and I fell into them because I knew he would catch me.
Thoughts raced around in my mind feverishly and I kept remembering in the back of my mind somewhere, that I was still married. I pulled away. Donald's eyes burned through me but he kept his composure.
I, on the other hand, felt like my world had been rocked off its axis and I didn’t know how I was going to act normal for the rest of the day. I fixed my pencil skirt and buttoned up my blouse.
“You should redo your hair,” Donald said. I knew I looked like the hot mess I felt.
Donald turned and unlocked the door, using his fingers this time. He opened the door, and glanced back at me before he disappeared. I was left behind in the wake of destruction. The air in the copy room was thick, emotions hanging in the corners like fog, and the smell of betrayal, lust, and freedom all mingling, pinching my nose.
I shuddered and walked back into the real world.
4
I got on the shuttle that would take me home. It was a normal routine, I was on the curb at three, and I stepped into the shuttle, greeting the same man I always did.
But everything felt off. There was an electric hum in the air, and my skin prickled. My stomach was a knot of nerves and I tried to untangle my feelings in all of it. Donald was a hurricane in my life, pushing everything just a little bit off-kilter. I hadn’t been happy with my life before, but I’d been able to deal with it. Now everything felt just so much off-balance that I had to really focus not to lose it. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to face my life anymore.
You’re being an idiot, I told myself. You’re being irrational. A stupid affair. Not even. A once off thing, and you want to wash everything down the drain. Your life is a good one and I tried my best to believe it.
But it wasn’t just Donald. It wasn’t just my eyes that were suddenly opened to the fierceness that life could hold. I’d been passive for so long.
When the shuttle pulled up at the corner and I stepped out, the air was charged. This wasn’t just Donald. I was sure of it now. As I walked home, the atmosphere pressed down on me, heavier and heavier as I got closer to the house. I swallowed hard and focused on
breathing. In. Out. In. Out.
Vampires could feel a lot of things. I’d pushed my senses away. It was my job to be the housewife. Lashan was the ruler of our little kingdom. It was the man’s job to protect his own. But my senses were alive and tingling now, and I had a very ugly feeling that something was about to go wrong. It was like a bad aftertaste in my mouth, something I couldn’t swallow away.
When I opened the front door, Lashan sat in the armchair that faced the television. His back was to me. I jumped, unable to stop the fear rippling through my body before I got a handle on it.
Calm. I had to stay calm.
“You’re home early,” I said, dropping my keys on top of the little wooden stand instead of putting it in the drawer as I usually did.
“Where were you?” he asked. His voice sounded far away, like he was talking through cotton.
“I was at the butcher. I wanted to make something special tonight.” I’d said the first thing that came to mind.
“And?” He stood up, and the air around us shifted. I realized that the force I was feeling came from him.
“And what?” I asked, forcing myself to stay confident. Lashan would read insecurity.
“What did you get?”
I swallowed, mind racing. I had nothing to show for my supposed trip.
“I couldn’t find anything that suited my taste. I wanted it perfect.”
Lashan walked around me, circling like a vulture. His eyes were scrutinizing.
“You were at the butcher’s for five hours, and you have nothing to show for it?” he asked. His voice was low, almost a soft purr, but I knew better than to take his calm attitude at face value. When Lashan screamed and shouted and threw things around he was more bark than bite, and it would blow over almost as quickly as it started. It was when he was quiet and pensive like this that he was really dangerous.
“Five hours?”
“I came home at ten.” He stopped in front of me. His hands hung idly by his side, but his left hand twitched slightly before it was still against his thigh. Again I focused on breathing regularly.
