by Cj Howard
It didn’t smell like he was alone, either. I recognized the scent of Conrad and Verne, two of Lawson’s bullies. He meant business.
And I was back to being afraid again.
I turned and I ran. I rushed back to my car. I peeled out of the lot and sped off. Several other cars honked at me as I cut across traffic in my haste to get back to Marco. I nearly hit Marco’s car when I pulled into his driveway, before I screeched to a stop, and dashed out of my car without shutting the door behind me.
“Marco!” I shouted as I burst in the door, my voice echoing throughout the cavernous entrance. “Marco! Marco!”
I ran through the house, following his scent until he emerged from a room in front of me. He had time to voice a worried “Zoe?” before I crashed into him, engulfing him in my arms as we both fell to the floor.
The panic on my face must have shown like a billboard. “Zoe, what is it?”
“Lawson! My alpha! He’s here, in this city!”
“What? Did you see him?”
“No. But he’d been in my apartment, I could smell it.”
“Your apartment…? He knows where you live?”
I shook my head. “Not anymore! I can’t go back there again!”
“You know you can stay with me for as long as you need to. But… if he found out where you live, he might know where you work, too. Which could lead…”
“…Back to you,” I finished the ominous thought.
We looked at each other, seeing each other’s dread. I buried my face against his chest. “I won’t do it! I won’t go back to being his bitch!”
“He’s gonna have to get through me first!” he declared. “You’re my she-wolf now. If he shows his ugly snout to me, I’ll make him see that!”
“I smelled more than just him at my apartment,” I said. “He brought a couple of his goons with him. We’re outnumbered!”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said through his teeth, “I won’t let him take you!” But he didn’t sound as certain this time. And if there was any uncertainty in him, then I knew I wasn’t safe. Smothering myself against him, I started to cry.
*
Our lovemaking that night wasn’t the frenzied, passionate fucking we usually enjoyed. Tonight it was solely about comfort. Zoe needed me, more than she ever had before. I could see it in the way she stared into my eyes as I slowly thrust into her, her eyes constantly looking like they might start shedding tears again at any second. I could feel it in the way her arms held onto me for dear life, holding her body against me as if she never wanted to let go. Even after I released my seed into her depths, she refused to loosen her grip on me. I could barely move enough to extract my softening cock from her, she held me so tightly. We ultimately fell asleep with her still holding me in a death grip, which she still had me in when we awoke the next morning.
We took what precautions we could in the days that followed. Zoe formally moved in with me, and I hired a few bodyguards to keep watch around the grounds. Zoe filed a police report about her “abusive ex” who was somewhere in town, coming to get her. We made a personal rule to only become four-legged on my grounds, and only when we were sure nobody could see us. As much as we were trying to be careful, sometimes we just needed to get out and run. And never more so than now.
No matter what we did, however, Zoe would never feel completely safe. Even more than when I first met her, she became an incomparably nervous mess. She was tense at all times, messing up at her job, awkwardly stammering when she was asked a question. It was only when I held her in my arms or when we made love, or most of all when we became four-legged, that she ever seemed to relax at all.
I was unaccustomed to feeling powerless. It was obviously a feeling that Zoe knew well, but I was a stranger to it. For years, I had grown used to the feeling that there was little to nothing I couldn’t do. I had money, I had power, I could make things happen if I wanted to. But I couldn’t make Zoe less afraid. I wanted nothing more than to keep her safe, but nothing I could do would be enough. Nothing short of…
We came home from work one night. I went to my kitchen to pour myself a scotch, to brace myself to talk to her about the thought that was going through mind. She stood in the middle of the living room, clutching her arms as if she were cold, and I took a swig of my drink.
“I’m tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen,” I announced to her.
“What else do you want to do?”
“I want to hunt him down myself. I want to find him and challenge him directly. If I fight him for you and kill him, then it’ll be over.”
She rushed to my arms, shaking her head. “You can’t face him! He’s an alpha! He’d kill you! And if he didn’t, Conrad and Verne would do it for him!”
“If he’s a real alpha, he won’t use his bullies to answer a direct challenge. He’d have to fight his own battles.”
“He’s an alpha because he always wins his battles!” she said. “What if you lost? Not only would there be nothing keeping him from me, but…” She pressed her head to my chest. “Marco, I can’t lose you! I wouldn’t survive!”
I squared my jaw. “We can’t keep living like this. There has to be something we can do!”
On that, she looked off to the side, thinking. She stepped away, wringing her hands.
“Is there something on your mind?” I asked.
“Well… there is something I’ve been thinking…”
I waited. “What is it?” I said.
She wrung her hands harder, looking like she needed some of the scotch I carried to say what she was thinking. She turned, and looked me square in the eyes. “Promise me you won’t freak out?”
Now my curiosity was piqued. I raised an eyebrow at her, while she waited for an answer. “I can’t promise anything for sure,” I said.
She took a breath. “I’m due to go into heat next week.”
I stared at her, turning over in my head what I’d just heard. She suddenly turned away, seemingly mortified that those words had escaped her mouth.
“Are you suggesting what I think you are?” I said.
She found the courage to look at me again. “If I’m carrying your pup, then I’m indisputably yours. Even Lawson will have to respect that.”
I marched forward, and grabbed hold of her shoulders. She shied away from eye contact again. “Look at me,” I commanded.
She lifted her eyes to meet mine.
“You want us to mate? Are you sure this is what you want?” I pointedly asked her.
“I am if it’s with you.”
My gaze dropped its focus. This was one hell of a bomb she had chosen to drop on me. A woman I hadn’t even known for two months now was asking me to give her a child; most people would call that insane. But the more I thought about the idea, the more it made sense. This wasn’t just any woman. This was the only woman I’d met in years who actually met something to me. And if I didn’t father her pup, then her alpha surely would. If it was a choice between that and the alternative…
I looked back to her eyes. “Alright.”
For the first time in days, Zoe actually smiled. She threw her arms about me and rose up to plant an all-consuming kiss on me.
“So… we just need to wait a week,” I mused.
“What will we do until then?” she grinned.
Chapter6
I churned my hips back and forth on Marco’s lap, reaching down to rub my clit while Marco reached around to palm my tits. He was seated on the couch while I sat in his lap with my back to him, impaled on his cock. I tilted my head to the side when he leaned his head around to kiss my neck. I moaned louder as his fingers began toying with my nipples.
Yes, it would still be a week before I was due to become fully fertile. That didn’t mean we couldn’t start trying early. And I was eager to do all the trying we could squeeze in.
It was like something had awakened in me the moment Marco said yes. It wasn’t that I was not still afraid. But now I could see a way out. I ha
d actual hope that Lawson wouldn’t be able to take me back. That I could finally be truly free. And what was more, I wanted Lawson to know that. I wanted him to know that I didn’t belong to him. Hell, I almost wished he could see me now, with Marco inside me, just to send the message to him that I was someone else’s she-wolf now.
Maybe that was the reason I felt like I wanted Marco and I to do nothing but fuck for the next week. It was almost like I was on heat already. If I was this horny now, I shuddered to think what I’d be like next week when my libido was due to go through the roof.
I rubbed my clit harder, working to get myself off. I went stiff when I came, savoring the feeling of having Marco’s stiff cock inside me for my pussy to convulse around. He held me tightly to his chest as I rode through my orgasm.
As I came down from it, he lowered me down onto the couch face-first and on my knees, and resumed fucking me from behind. I laid my head to the side on the throw pillow, looking back over my shoulder at him. “Oh yeah, fuck me!” I urged him on. He gripped my hips tight in his hands, pulling my back end to meet his thrusts.
He grunted and thrust a final time, and I felt his seed splashing against my insides. He breathed loudly and I withdrew, and I reached a hand between my legs to rub my slit as his spending dripped from it. I slumped down on the couch, and he lay down on it behind me, spooning with me, placing a caressing hand on my breast and planting little kisses on my shoulder.
“Wow,” he breathed against my ear, “what happened to you all of a sudden?”
“You happened,” I said, reaching a hand behind my to run through his hair.
We simply lay there for a while, enjoying each other’s touch. Finally he asked, “Want to go for a run?”
I grinned wide. “You try and stop me!” I beamed, already rolling off the couch and starting to shift.
I was on four legs by the time my paws hit the floor, and I dashed. I almost immediately heard Marco’s paws running across the floor behind me. When I got to the back door, I grabbed the handle in my jaws and pulled, and hurried down the marble steps to the wide yard below. I kept enough of a clear head to run in the direction Marco’s security wouldn’t see me, but that was where my conscious thought ended. I simply dashed for the trees, feeling the wind in my fur, the ground beneath my paws, the blood rushing through my veins.
I loped about, moving this way and that through the trees, until Marco pounced on me from behind and we went tumbling through the dirt. When we stopped, I lay on my back with him standing over me, his front paws on my chest, staring down with his wolf’s eyes at me. As one we shifted back to two legs, and he leaned down to kiss me. I spread my legs, eager for more.
We still weren’t safe. I knew that. But I was finally daring to believe that we soon would be. It was only a week; we had made it longer than that already without hearing any more from Lawson.
*
I don’t know what sexual demon possessed Zoe in the ensuing week. It was like she wanted to spend every minute of every day having sex, and only lamented the fact that we were bound by the limits of our own stamina. I would’ve almost dared to suspect she was worried about missing the point when she went into heat and wanted to make sure we were in the middle of sex when it happened.
My endurance wasn’t the only thing getting a workout from Zoe’s insistence on fucking at least three or four times a day (at the very least I might add). Very little work ended up getting done in my office in the ensuing days, because she was bound and determined to put the durability of every piece of furniture I had in that office to the test. I ended up having to replace my chair after two days; we had given it such a workout. I was actually impressed with how well my desk held up.
The weekend passed us by without incident. Zoe developed a nervous excitement, knowing that she was due to go into heat any day now. We just had to hold on, and if she had her way, keep fucking like animals.
We were in the office one day when Zoe told me she was going to the copy room to make some more copies of the latest report for today’s meeting. Nothing out of the ordinary. The part that was a bit different came when Theo stopped by my office while she was out.
“Hey, Marco, buddy, funny thing happening. There’s these two detectives in the meeting room saying they want to ask you some questions.”
I sat up straight, raising an eyebrow. “Did they say what about?” I asked.
“Not really,” Theo shrugged. “Maybe they think someone in our firm is embezzling money or something; they kinda had that ‘somebody’s in trouble’ look going on. Not to mention a kind of ‘we’re gonna hurt someone till they die’ look to go with it. They just say they really need to talk to you, by name and title and everything. And they said it’s urgent, too, like get off your tush now urgent.”
I was suspicious. That goes without saying. I suppose now I should have been more suspicious, but I didn’t really question it then. I got up, left a note for Zoe, and headed for the meeting room.
And as soon as I stepped through the door, I knew I’d walked into a trap.
Yes, there were two men in the room with me, like Theo said. And yes, they were wearing detective shields. They also looked about as intimidating as Theo had described them. One of them was thin with a short black beard, and was busy peeling an apple with a rusty knife. The other had a scar across one whited out eye, he had a thicker build, and he was leaning with his fist resting on the table, looking like he was waiting to punch it through something.
Still, no matter how mean or intimidating they looked, it was their scent that gave them away. One whiff of them and I knew these two weren’t real cops.
They had the distinct scent of my own kind.
“Afternoon Mr. Lupis,” said the thin one with the beard, eating a slice of apple off his knife. The grins on their faces belied any notion of pretense with me. They knew I could tell what they were.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I demanded.
“We’re just curious about you,” the bearded one said. “When we heard one of our kind got as far as you did on his own, without even a pack to back him up, well, call us inspired. Please, enlighten us, how did a lone wolf like you get to be such a big shot?”
My patience was not fit to be tested right then. “Don’t play games with me!” I shouted, slamming my hands down on the table.
The scarred one rose from his seat, clenching his fists even tighter if that was possible. But his calmer companion put a hand on his shoulder to coax him back down. “There’s no need to shout, my friend,” the bearded one said.
“I’ll ask you again,” I said, brooking no argument, “who are you?”
The bearded one took another bite of apple off his knife. “Just think of us as messengers,” he said. “Our alpha asked us to come… entertain you. I’m sure your lady friend has mentioned him.”
Now I knew for certain what I’d already suspected. “You’re Conrad and Verne!”
“Yes, Conrad would be my name,” the bearded one said, offering out a slice of fruit on his knife. “Care for a piece?”
A horrible realization struck me then. If they were here…
“Zoe!”
Verne sprang up from his seat, lunging for me. I ducked down under the table and began pushing up from beneath to overturn it. I was fighting against Verne’s weight, but I put enough effort into it to get the table tipped over, slamming it down onto the floor. I nearly brought my head above the long shield of the table, and corrected that mistake just in time to avoid Conrad’s rusty knife being thrown at my head, and for it to embed itself in the wood of the wall behind me. I dashed along the floor to the other end of the table, stripping as quickly as I could in mid-motion.
I was almost finished getting out of my clothes when two wolves leapt over the top of the table, snarling and snapping at me. The one whose scar gave him away as Verne nearly got his jaws on my ankle before I had finally shed enough to shift myself. I stood there, my tail raised, my fur bristling, growling at the two wolv
es before me. They growled back. Verne rushed me first; I rose on my hind legs to meet him, clawing and biting at him. We both drew fair amounts of blood, but then Conrad came to bite at my side. I retreated back from the attack, limping from the fresh wound.
As much as my wolf instinct told me to stand my ground, the fact was I was outnumbered. And I had something more important to worry about. I ran around the other side of the table, letting them chase me. I circled around it once, then hopped up onto a table, and before I had a chance to think better of it I jumped right through the translucent glass of the windows surrounding the meeting room.
As the glass shattered outward around me, the assorted bankers and stockbrokers jumped back in surprise, and then screamed at the sight of a wolf in the building with them. It is not everyday that you see a wolf on wall street, well not a real wolf anyway. More running and screaming ensued when two more wolves jumped through the window behind me, and I went running through the crowds of terrified workers.
I had to get to Zoe!
Chapter7
Like a typical secretary, I was just going to make some copies. Nothing out of the ordinary. I was standing over the copy machine when I heard the sound of someone’s footsteps behind me. I was just about to turn around and see who was entering the room, when the person’s scent answered that question for me.
And every muscle in my body froze in terror.
It couldn’t be! Not here! Not him!
And then came his voice, confirming to my infinite dismay that I wasn’t imagining his scent. “Hello, Zoe.”
I didn’t want to turn around. I didn’t want to see him standing there. I didn’t want this to be real.
But turn around I did.
I staggered backwards, bracing my hands against the copy machine. “Lawson!” I squeaked in a barely audible voice.
He glared at me with the sharp, flinty eyes that had haunted my dreams. His jaw was set in the scowl he always had for me when I’d done something to displease him. And I had never displeased him like this. Having the gall to dare running away from him was not something he was bound to forgive.
