by Wolf (lit)
“Don’t!” he growled, breaking from her lips again.
She opened her eyes and stared at him in reproach and he felt like a fucking dog. “I can’t, baby. You know I can’t.”
Her expression hardened. For a moment, he thought she was going to leap off of his lap. Instead, she unzipped his pants and caught hold of his cock. It was like being punched in his stomach. He thought for a moment he was going to black out.
“You started it!” she said angrily, jerking her hips to dislodge his finger and thrusting the head of his cock inside of her.
He caught her hips, but there was no fighting the beast riding him then. Instead of thrusting her away, he began straining to pull her down over his cock, panting for breath as he felt the walls of her sex squeezing him. “Jesus, Baby! Oh Jesus!” He uttered a guttural growl as he felt his cock jerk threateningly.
It was like a dam breaking. He completely lost control, lost all focus beyond driving into her until he’d pumped his seed into her. He was dimly aware that she was shaking as badly as he was, jerking, but the convulsing of her pussy around his cock didn’t leave room for thought. He grunted breathlessly with a mixture of satisfaction and something akin to pain as his balls ejected his seed in a scalding fountain, tightened and erupted again, over and over until there was nothing left to pump into her.
He felt so weak when it finally stopped he was just relieved that it had. Holding her tightly, he pumped into her a couple more times, just to make sure he had nothing left, and finally collapsed backwards with her. He hit something on his way down that jolted him from the edge of consciousness.
Sylvie, sprawled on his chest, uttered a sound that made him open one eye.
She rubbed the side of his head. “Tree.”
He smiled blissfully, ignoring the throbbing pain. “Did I knock it down?”
She snickered again. “No, but you knocked the bark off of it.”
“It’ll live,” he said indifferently.
Releasing a deep sigh of contentment, she snuggled against his chest. For the first time it dawned on him to wonder if he’d managed to satisfy her before he’d come. Relieved that he obviously had if she was in such a good humor, he closed his eyes to savor the blissful sense of relief that had engulfed him.
It took a while for guilt to begin nagging at him. He lifted a hand to stroke her hair apologetically. “I fucked up, Sylvie. I really fucked up.”
“You did,” she murmured. “Next time, I’ll get on the bottom and you can fuck down.”
The comment caught him off guard. He uttered a snorting laugh, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her upward along his chest to nuzzle his face against her neck. The move ‘unplugged’ her and he felt hot semen leak from her body and on to his belly. It sobered him.
At the same time, it gave him an odd thrill, knowing he’d filled her body to the brim with his seed. His cock stirred with the urge to pump more into her, but he was sated enough at the moment he couldn’t get a rise out of it.
Just as well the flesh was weak, he thought wryly. He would’ve been mightily tempted to roll over and take her up on her offer. “We need to bathe and get to camp.”
She didn’t argue, but she sighed a little regretfully before she got up and it made him feel a little better. He sat up and watched her, struggling with a mixture of guilt, regret, and the growing desire to do it all over again.
“I shouldn’t have exposed you like that,” he said finally.
Sylvie flicked a glance at him. “You think it’s in your semen but not your saliva?”
He frowned, feeling his face heat. “I didn’t mean to do that either.”
She shook her head. “I kissed you—that first time. I suppose you could’ve warned me, but I can’t think of a time that would’ve been … appropriate. You think you should’ve stormed my boat bellowing ‘Beware! I could be carrying something!’”
Mac was almost amused … almost. “God damn it, Baby! This is serious shit! I’m trying to tell you I’m worried about you!”
Sylvie stared at him a long moment and finally approached him. Dropping to her knees in front of him, she caught his face between her palms. “And, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. I think you should stop worrying about this … thing, whatever it is. I know it must be … scary. From what I understand, you got it months and months ago, though. If it was going to hurt you, make you sick or even kill you, I think it would have by now. You and the others … you’re … strong, amazing, too strong for this to be anything detrimental to your health.”
He swallowed with an effort, struggling with the sense of relief trying to take hold of him. “We can’t control it,” he ground out. “You saw what we became. Any time we’re threatened, even get pissed off, it takes over.”
Sylvie studied him for a long moment, thinking back. “You can control it,” she said with conviction. “You weren’t threatened when those men attacked me.”
“I was fucking pissed off, though.”
She met his gaze and leaned closer to press a light kiss to his lips. “You can control it. You’ve summoned it when you needed it—twice. I know it can’t be … pleasant for you, trying to live with it, but people learn to live with all sorts of things that happen to them. You just need to take the time to understand it and learn how to deal with it.”
His lips tightened. “You aren’t worried I gave it to you?”
She considered it. “I haven’t really had time to think about it or worry about it. I’ve been too busy trying to get in your pants.”
He burst out laughing. He shook his head at her when he’d mastered the laughter. “You can get in my pants anytime you want to, baby.”
She smiled at him seductively. “Really?”
He heaved a disgusted breath. “Except right now. I’ve got to get you back to camp and try to catch supper. I’m starving.”
“In that case, I guess I might as well get dressed,” she said wryly.
Her shirt was wet—and still bloody. Her belly clenched and guilt smote her, but she reminded herself that the wound hadn’t looked as bad as she’d first thought. No doubt, they’d put together some kind of medical supplies from the boat. She knew there’d been a medical kit.
When she’d rinsed the shirt as thoroughly as she could given that it had grown so dark it was hard to see, she wrung it out and put it on. The pants were damp and filled with sand. She shook them and stepped in them.
She couldn’t quite decipher the looks the others trained on them when they finally arrived at the camp, but she strongly suspected that they had a good idea of what had happened between her and Mac.
For one thing, Mac looked so damned cheerful and relaxed he might as well have strolled into camp whistling. It pleased her enormously to have had a part in lifting the burden from his shoulders, but she wasn’t particularly happy about the hungry looks from the others or the way they looked at Mac—like they wouldn’t mind tearing his throat out.
“I don’t think food is going to drop out of the sky,” he said. “Hawk, you and Beau keep an eye on Sylvie. “Cavanaugh, come with me.”
Despite the animosity she felt radiating from them, Cavanaugh got up immediately. Beau returned his attention to filling the water bottles they’d emptied. Hawk took the pot when he emptied it and headed back to the stream.
“How’s your shoulder?” Sylvie asked a little uncomfortably.
He shrugged and swiveled to show it to her in the firelight.
She sucked in a sharp breath of surprise when she saw it. “How?”
He made a sound that might’ve been disgust. “Doan ask me, chère. It jus’ happens.”
Sylvie swallowed a little convulsively when she remembered what Hawk had said. “When you’re hurt, it heals like that? Every time?”
He grunted. “So far.”
“But it still hurts terribly, doesn’t it?”
He squirmed a little uncomfortably. “Nah. Weren’t too bad. Adrenaline, you know? You doan feel too much unt
il it goes away. I wished I’d tore that panther’s head off, though. You ok, now?”
Sylvie felt her face heat with embarrassment. “It didn’t hurt me. It just scared the hell out of me. I was … upset because y’all were hurt protecting me.”
He smiled for the first time. “You was worried about us, huh?”
She smiled back at him. “Of course I was. Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged. “I thought, maybe, you was cryin’ ‘cause we scared you so bad, chère.”
The urge to comfort him as she had Mac smote her. She struggled against it for fear Mac would take exception and she’d precipitate another fight. She didn’t want them fighting with each because of her. They’d been friends and close companions for years. She didn’t want to ruin that for them. She especially didn’t want to when she knew they depended on one another more now than ever. “I wasn’t afraid when I saw y’all. I was relieved because I knew you’d come to protect me.”
Hawk returned in the middle of that explanation. He flicked a censorious frown at her as he squatted down and carefully placed the pot of water he’d brought in the edge of the fire. “That why you didn’t call out? You worried about us getting hurt?”
Sylvie looked at him in dismay. “I was too afraid to call out.”
His lips tightened. “You were trying to keep quiet. I saw you, so don’t bother to lie about it.”
“If I’d screamed they could’ve heard me to the coast!” she said a little defensively.
“I don’t give a fuck if they heard you in China!” Hawk growled. “That damned cat would’ve eat you alive, baby! Did you think about that?”
Sylvie bit her lip.
“Oh hell! Don’t start crying at me, damn it! You scared me out of ten years of my life and I’m pissed off about it! I ought to beat your ass!”
“I doan think I’ll let you do that, mon ami,” Beau said tightly.
Hawk glared at him. “I didn’t say I was going to, god damn it! I said I ought to.”
Sylvie swallowed against the knot of emotion in her throat. “I promised I wouldn’t cause any trouble,” she reminded him.
“And you think getting’ mauled …! Never mind!” he said gruffly, dragging her up against his side and squeezing her hard. “Don’t cry! Everybody will be trying to kick my ass and I’m too damned tired and weak from fright to handle it right now. Just don’t do anything like that anymore!”
Sylvie would’ve chuckled at that if he hadn’t been squeezing the breath out of her. Luckily, he was satisfied to give her a quick squeeze and let go of her.
“God! I hope they find something big. I could eat the ass end of a buffalo,” he muttered when he released her.
* * * *
When Mac had found a likely looking spot near the stream again and settled to wait, he found himself thinking over what Sylvie had said. At least, he did once he’d managed to put their lovemaking from his mind, which took him a while. Little by little, though, he turned his mind from his satisfaction about that to dissatisfaction about his complaining stomach and, as he did, he thought about what she’d said, wondering about it.
She was right, he finally concluded. He hadn’t really been aware of calling the change when he needed it, but he had willed himself to change because he’d needed to move faster to reach her in time. That led him to wonder if he could call it at any time he felt a need for the expansion of his senses and abilities. Closing his eyes, he focused on trying to summon it. Nothing happened. He didn’t feel the strange disorientation or the stinging that he usually felt when his flesh began to remold itself.
Cavanaugh was staring at him curiously when he opened his eyes again. “What’re you doing?”
Mac released a huff of disgust. “Nothing I don’t guess.” He debated with himself briefly. “Sylvie thinks we can control it, make it happen when we want to and change back when we want to.”
Cavanaugh looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I don’t know about you, but it scares the shit out of me every time I feel it coming over me. I don’t fucking want to call it.”
Mac shrugged. “It would make it easier to catch something to eat. I’m fucking starving. It’s like … it takes everything out of me every time and I’m so hungry afterward my stomach feels like it’s going to cave in.”
Cavanaugh rubbed his stomach. “Don’t remind me. I’m trying not to think about it.”
Mac closed his eyes again. This time, instead of chanting in his head, he focused on his body as he might when he was trying to gather himself to jump. Almost immediately, he felt the strange sense of floating. He forced himself to relax, to let it happen instead of struggling against it as he usually did. He felt his body remolding itself, but this time, he didn’t feel the burning pain—some discomfort but nothing like he’d felt at other times.
When he opened his eyes, he discovered that Cavanaugh was gaping at him as if he’d never seen him like that before.
He also discovered when he tried to speak that all that came out was a strange sound.
“How the fuck did you do that?”
Mac stared at him uneasily and finally tipped his head to look down at himself. The fur was there, and the paws tipped with lethal claws, but his arms didn’t look long and thick and his pants looked strangely empty. His heart jerked in fear and then he realized his legs had shortened to match his arms.
His fucking dick was hairy!
What the fuck?
“You look … like a wolf—a really big, really fucking scary looking wolf.”
Startled but feeling a great deal of relief, Mac focused on trying to change back. Satisfied that he actually did have control, he stopped in half transition and focused on trying to regain the form of a wolf. He met Cavanaugh’s gaze for a long moment when he’d fully transitioned and then lifted his head, seeking prey. Almost immediately, he caught scent of a peccary. He began following the scent, but when he’d gone a short distance, he stopped and looked back at Cavanaugh.
After staring at him for a long moment, Cavanaugh closed his eyes and focused on trying to summon the change. Mac watched as he shifted from man to beast man and then to a form he assumed was much like his own. Uttering a soft whine, Cavanaugh scented the air and then followed him.
Mac felt a sense of exhilaration as he bounded through the forest, an odd mixture of anticipation and the hunger that had driven him to try to summon the change. His mouth began to water as the scent grew stronger and the certainty settled in him that he was closing in on his prey. His ears picked up the faint sounds of pig-like noises in the distance and he tested the wind again to make certain it wasn’t carrying his scent to his prey.
The currents shifted around him and, as they did, he changed directions, moving steadily toward the family of peccary, more stealthily as he realized he was virtually upon them. Jerking his head as a signal to Cavanaugh when he finally gained a vantage point that allowed him to see the peccaries, he moved in the opposite direction.
The peccary caught their scent, stiffened for a moment and lifted their heads, snuffling at the air. Screaming, they began to dart away in as many different directions as there were peccary. Mac marked his target and leapt into the center of them even as they began to scatter, catching the beast he’d chosen by the throat and shaking his head to tear the flesh. It screamed again, gurgling as he locked his jaws tighter. The fight went out of it abruptly and a sense of triumph rushed through him. Lifting his head, he uttered a cry of victory to the heavens, urging the rest of his pack to join them in their feast.
Cavanaugh, who’d killed his own, joined him, uttering a series of yips.
* * * *
Sylvie shuddered as the distant sound of howling wolves drifted to her on the night air. She rubbed her hands along her arms to smooth the goosebumps that had leapt to life. “They have wolves … here?”
Neither Beau nor Hawk answered her. They’d stiffened just as she had at the sound. It unnerved her when they both stood abruptly, glancing around as if t
rying to pinpoint the direction of the howls.
“Hawk? Beau?”
Neither man seemed to hear her. Instead, they began to move away from the fire, slowly at first and then rushing. Dumbfounded, fearful that the wolves were coming to attack, she shot to her feet to stare after them. She was about to call to them again when she saw them change. Almost from one stride to the next, they shifted from man to man beast—and then into wolves.
Sylvie blinked, feeling her jaw slide to half-mast in stunned disbelief, but there was no disputing that, where they’d been before, she saw wolves bounding away until they disappeared into the shadows of the jungle. She wasn’t certain how long she stood staring at the darkness where they disappeared when she heard more howls, closer than before.
She sank weakly to the ground again. Hawk and Beau coming back, she wondered? Or the pair that had called before?
Called to them, she realized abruptly.
It had to have been Mac and Cavanaugh, but how?
It was hard enough to swallow that they could transform themselves from men into man beasts, but wolves?
She was insane! If they could mutate at will from one thing to another, there was no reason why they had to take any specific form! Or maybe they did? Maybe they just hadn’t completely changed before?
There was no point in searching her mind for any answers. Nothing in the world could do what they’d done—even as men—nothing known. Nothing accepted as ‘real’, she realized, because no one believed such a thing as werewolves actually existed. She certainly hadn’t. She wasn’t sure she could accept it having seen it with her own eyes, but how else to explain it? Dementia?
She could believe that whatever they had contracted in the jungle might make them hallucinate, but they weren’t just imagining that they were changing, they were morphing.
Unless she was hallucinating because she’d contracted it, too?
If she was, she decided a lot of other people had also been affected. The men who’d experimented on them and that were determined to chase them down and destroy them obviously believed.
