Moon Dancer

by Aimee Easterling

  Patricia didn’t seem to notice my lack of finesse. “Yes, yes, definitely yes!” Her eyes sparkled as she agreed to handle the logistics of prepping the van and inviting students. She could plan driving shifts so we didn’t have to stop, figure out meals and lodging....

  I had a hard time focusing, however, since Claw’s scent was now wafting toward us down the hall. Butterscotch and moss beneath cold, spring water. I shivered, ghost fingers caressing my hips where he’d held me the day before.

  “It sounds like so much fun.” Suzy’s wistful voice interrupted my reverie. She had no family to speak of and depended on students and faculty for socializing. I’d intended to take her out to lunch a few times during spring break, a way to break the loneliness she was bound to endure when vacation separated her from her pseudo-pack.

  “You should come with us.”

  The suggestion was obvious, but I wasn’t the one who made it. Instead, the words emerged from behind my back in Claw’s deep baritone.

  MY BODY WARMED. MY wolf woke. Her interest was doubly dangerous now that Claw had stated aloud the repercussions of unChanging me.

  Mate or sister? I was terrified my wolf would think through the consequences and decide she wanted to stay exactly where she was.

  “Ooh, is this your boyfriend?” Suzy’s eyes sparkled. “If so, I approve.”

  “No, he’s my...”

  Mate, my wolf whispered.

  Quiet, I answered.

  “We’re taking it slow.” Claw’s hand drifted closer, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind my ear. “We’re not using labels.”

  My wolf melted into a puddle of jelly. My skin burned where we’d touched, albeit fleetingly.

  Still I tensed, expecting the noose around my neck to tighten. But it didn’t. My wolf appeared content with Claw’s offered middle ground of non-labels. The gesture seemed sufficient to prevent growth of the pack tendril that bound us close.

  “And he’s coming with us?” Patricia looked as pleased as Suzy was. This news was going to make the rounds of campus as fast as social-media posts could be liked and forwarded.

  “No. Well....”

  We need a pack, my wolf murmured. Territories. Danger. Claw will keep us safe.

  She was, unfortunately, right. I’d been willing to risk passing through strange werewolf territories alone with Val. But in a van full of students? I couldn’t risk their skins to save my own.

  And you’re still willing to jump to Val once we get there? I countered. It was hard but necessary to lay my cards on the table.

  My alter-ego didn’t speak, but reluctant agreement filled me. She was a wolf of the moment. Time with Claw now trumped an uncertain fate later on.

  It was decided. So, refusing to meet the eyes that bored into me, I changed my tune. “I mean, yes. Claw is coming with us.”

  My wolf’s yip of pleasure echoed in my lungs.

  Chapter 10

  I might have accepted Claw—and, by extension, his pack—as part of my expedition. But that didn’t mean I had to spend the day with them.

  “Come over for dinner,” Val suggested a couple of hours later. She’d bearded me in my lair—my home—and was currently giving me the hard sell. “Theta and Harry are going running to stock up on wolf time, but Claw and I have a movie date.”

  “I don’t want to be a third wheel....”

  “You won’t be a third wheel. Claw and I are brother and sister, not a bicycle.”

  Val’s voice was so exasperated that I couldn’t help laughing and accepting her offer at face value. After all, I’d learned about their past in bits and pieces over the past three months, and what they’d told me matched her analysis of the situation.

  Claw and Val hadn’t been born siblings. Instead, their acquaintance began ten years ago when Val had been a foster kid intrigued by the close-knit family outside her town’s borders. Unbeknownst to her, Claw was the younger son of an asshole alpha who used his dictatorial powers to keep the pack hidden from their human neighbors.

  To cut a long story short, Val had snuck into wolf territory and seen Claw shifting. She’d gasped. He’d nabbed her. And, in typical Claw fashion, he’d extracted a promise of secrecy in lieu of the death penalty she’d rightfully earned.

  Then his father caught wind of the leak. Claw was the spare, not the heir. The pack had been particularly unruly that season. Claw was hanged from a tree as a lesson to the rest of the clan.

  “I did kiss Claw,” Val told me now, adding a new layer to the old story. “After I picked the lock in the cage they’d stuck me in, escaped, and cut him down.”

  Her youthful intrepidness was inspiring. Still, my wolf growled. The picture in our head wasn’t Claw, barely surviving death by strangulation. Instead, my inner beast was taking offense at the long-ago display of affection.

  “But there was no spark.” Val shrugged. “We’re brother and sister. I’ve told you this a million times. You’re 100% invited.”

  My wolf was having none of it. She slunk into my belly, biting the insides of my gut as she progressed downwards.

  I winced, pushing my hand into the pain and hoping she’d settle. When that didn’t work, I shook my head and rejected Val’s offer.

  “Not this time,” I told her. “But thanks anyway.”

  VAL WHEEDLED FOR A while longer, but eventually she gave in. And I was so intent upon managing my irascible wolf that I didn’t comment when my traitorous raven flew over to Val’s shoulder, leaving me alone in my home and my head.

  Instead of ruminating, I plotted out our journey, gathering paperwork on a potential route and plan of attack once we arrived at Yellowstone. Barring another vision, there were two obvious spots to begin our explorations. Mummy Cave—easy to access, but picked over by archaeologists for generations—and the rumored living petroglyphs outside park boundaries that no outsider had ever been granted access to.

  “What I need is an in with the Native American community,” I said aloud, waiting for Adena’s cawed response for far longer than I should have before remembering her abandonment. Shaking off my disappointment, I texted Patricia to expect me then headed back to campus.

  No, I wasn’t searching for pack mates—companions. I was just getting a jump start on tomorrow by packing the van today.

  My TA stood sentinel by the vehicle when I pulled up, clipboard in her hand and the rear compartment half-filled with lab items. “We’re all set,” she assured me. “If you want to check the list...?”

  “No, I trust you.”

  She glowed in response to my appreciation, a twenty-two-year-old ready to strike out on her own after this year’s graduation. The upcoming trip was a trial independence. A coveted test of her ability to spread her wings.

  Being human was nothing like being part of a pack.

  I stifled the twinge in my gut, uncertain whether it came from my wolf or my human half. Tossing my milk crate of paperwork in with the rest of the gear, I asked: “You don’t mind hanging onto the keys in case Suzy wants to stow her stuff early?”

  “No problem. I live on campus. I’m only a couple of minutes away.” Patricia paused, smirked, then added. “Your boyfriend wants to drop off some stuff later too. I told him he was welcome. I assume that’s okay?”

  “Sure.” Claw had no reason to stash supplies in the school van since he’d be taking his own vehicle. But he’d mentioned something about scent-marking to protect us from territorial werewolves. I hoped he didn’t intend to shift and pee on the seats.

  “So...” Patricia raised her eyebrows, awaiting further instructions. If she’d been a wolf, her ears would have pricked forward. She was prepared for anything, while I was waiting for...what?

  I shook my head, annoyed at my own foot-dragging. I should go home, take a long bath, get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow would be full of wolves and students. The smart move involved soaking up silence while I had the chance.

  Inside my belly, my wolf snorted her disapproval. “See you tomorrow,” I told P
atricia, heading back to my car.

  HOURS LATER, I FELL asleep in PJs...and woke furry and running. Our nails clicked against cold asphalt. A chill March breeze bled through the shorter hairs lining our face.

  What are you doing? I growled from within the wolf’s belly. Even my mind felt half lupine, or perhaps like I was dreaming. Rage and arousal danced across incorporeal skin.

  Wait and see. Her reply didn’t come in the form of words, just tangible anticipation. Together, we leapt across a concrete planter then slid through a bush to arrive at a decidedly undreamy location—the archaeology-department parking lot.

  In daylight, this expanse of pavement was mundane and boring. Now, it smelled of winter. Frost on dead grass. Layer upon layer of passing faculty and students. The harsh bite of car exhaust.

  The silence of campus resembled the interior of Sleeping Beauty’s lair.

  Before us, the van glowed white against the darkness. Its doors gaped open, as if someone had been packing then stepped away for a moment. I struggled to make sense of the vision, lost the thread of human rationalization as my wolf padded forward to sniff the closest tire.

  Strength. Alpha wolf. Protection. Atop the customary salt and ammonia of a urine deposit lay Claw’s sandalwood-and-moss signature. This was a statement of ownership and warning. My wolf turned our back and added to the olfactory display.

  Mine.

  Then we were leaping through the large side door, mouth wide as we took in the roiling waves of scents around us. Not just Claw but also Harry and Theta had rolled across the seat cushions. They’d rubbed against head rests, breathed on windows, spread their aromas hither and yon.

  Tomorrow, every student would end up smelling like werewolf. Unaware, they’d sit in these seats and be enfolded...just as I would be when I took my spot in the back.

  Now, though, my wolf and I had a hard time considering the future. Instead, we nosed along the aisle until we found the one seat in the rear where Claw had focused the most attention. My water bottle sat in the cup holder just where I’d left it, but the faint hint of my aroma was long smothered by Claw’s recent efforts to claim this spot as his own.

  Ours. The word was mine, the wolf’s, our shared conclusion. We barely managed to fit all four paws on the seat before flopping down and arching our back, rubbing against the arm rest like a catnip-drunk kitten.

  The suede fabric stroked us like Claw’s fingers. We licked at the plastic wall panel and tasted alpha-wolf sweat.

  Twisting into a contorted knot of pleasure, one eye came level with the gap leading to the rear storage compartment. My milk crate of paperwork was right where I’d left it, but a folder was pulled out. Papers spread across the surface.

  Wait. What? I struggled to sit upright, to lean in closer so I could understand who had been going through my notes.

  Don’t ruin this. Lupine emotions, not words, slapped my analytical mind backward. She scraped our chin against the cup holder where Claw’s thigh had made contact. She closed our eyes and panted up the joy of Claw’s scent.

  Unfortunately, I was no longer there with her. We need to smell who’s been back there, I demanded. They only left for a minute. We need to figure out what’s going on.

  Ruiner. My wolf smacked me with the annoyance of a hunter distracted. And this time I was knocked so deep into her belly that I faded all the way back to sleep.

  Chapter 11

  The van was ship-shape and ordinary by the time I showed back up in human form the next morning. My papers were right were I’d left them. Patricia seemed confused by my questions when I sidetracked her away from her ever-present clipboard.

  “Your boyfriend? Yeah, he came by with some friends yesterday a bit after you did.”

  “And you locked up the van afterwards?”

  She appeared wounded by my question. “Of course I did.”

  So...maybe those fuzzy memories had been the werewolf equivalent of a wet dream? I dropped by my office to pick up a couple of items I’d forgotten, then came back out to find Patricia standing halfway up the steps heading off a mob.

  “...I’ll die if I don’t get chosen!”

  “Statistically, our chances....”

  “I packed everything just in case.”

  Okay, not a mob. The young people, dressed and fed and hyped up on caffeine, were laughing and chattering. The trouble was, there were far too many of them for their presence to make any sense.

  After all, Dr. Sanora had mandated inviting only non-major students in an effort to shore up our dwindling enrollment. The attendees would have to skip two days of classes and give up their spring break, all on less than twenty-four hours of notice. I honestly hadn’t expected anyone to show up.

  Now I blinked to see if the crowd would disappear like last night’s dreamscape. Instead, Patricia began reading names off her clipboard. “Madison B. Madison M. Emily. Jacob.”

  The drummer boy from my lecture whacked his ever-present pencils against the side of the van in triumph. Was this...a lottery? And why did the weirdest kids always seem drawn to my events?

  I strove to focus on the selected students’ names and faces, only to lose track as Claw’s big, black SUV turned off the street to join us. Pack mates, my wolf caroled in my belly. She’d forgiven him for the decade-old kiss, apparently.

  But I was less willing to be swept up in romantic excitement. Instead, the tumult of students reminded me of all the things that could go wrong when mixing young humans with werewolves.

  We need to be careful. These kids are our pack mates.

  My wolf ignored me, reliving memories both lush and seductive. Claw’s aroma enfolding us. Invisible fingers traced a remembered pattern across our cheekbone....

  The pack bond between us tightened just as my wolf slid in a verbal suggestion. Maybe Claw can ride with us?

  Well, that wasn’t happening. I raised my voice to catch the gathered students’ attention. “Time’s a wasting. On the bus!”

  MY PHONE CHIMED AN hour later, a relief from the skin-prickling sensation of traveling in the center of Claw’s scent marking. The number was unfamiliar, but I needed the distraction. Sliding the pulsing dot sideways to answer, I offered a tentative: “Hello?”

  “Olivia.” The voice was female, sultry. I had no idea who was speaking. “Are you on the road yet?”

  “Um...yes?”

  “Good. You’ll be there on time then. I’ll text you the address.”

  Sure enough, my phone chimed with an incoming-text notification even as the woman changed gears. “That’s assuming you aren’t really on the run from domestic abuse. You can talk to me, you know. If that man hits you, we’ll get you out safely.”

  “Justine?” This had to be my father’s girlfriend. “Look, I know Claw made a bad first impression...”

  Around me, student ears pricked up. Road chatter ceased as everyone focused on my personal life.

  I turned toward the window, cupping the phone with my free hand to shield the conversation. “...But he’s really not like that.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it.” Justine cut off my explanation, her tone far more businesslike than I would have expected. “I get it. If you want help, ask for it. In the meantime, Shamanic Journeys is only half an hour out of your way. I went ahead and booked their best operator for the entire week.”

  “Wait—what? Why?”

  “Because of the rock art outside the park, of course.” Justine sounded slightly annoyed with me now. I was being too slow on the uptake. “If you want access, you’ll need a Native American shaman. You’re lucky one was available on such short notice.”

  And...that actually made sense. Apparently I’d made an incorrect assumption when I decided Justine was a dumb blonde. Still—

  “I appreciate your help. But I can pay for the shaman.” I wasn’t ready to accept money from a twenty-three-year-old maybe-stepmother-to-be who I barely knew.

  “Oh, sweetie.” She laughed. “Your father gave me a credit card fo
r incidentals. You know—toiletries, shoes, handbags. This will easily fall within my budget.”

  Then, without waiting for an answer, she hung up and left me to the dubious mercy of my students’ questioning stares.

  RATHER THAN EXPLAINING, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window...and I guess I fell asleep. Because the vision washed over me with the gentleness of warm bathwater. The distant past slid in and out of my pores.

  I was both the cave girl and her daughter in the same moment. I heard the chip of stone on stone while my fingers manipulated a half-formed statue. And, at the same time, I curled into a ball at my mother’s feet.

  Dreamy, we drifted through minutes or hours. The mother hummed and carved. The daughter nosed at her tether, widening and strengthening it with each interested tug.

  Then, somehow, my knowledge slid sideways and became their knowledge. Two heads tilted upwards in synchrony. Furry ears piqued while the cave girl’s eyes widened in dismay.

  The young mother had seen the tether through me. Had understood what her daughter was doing. And she reacted with horror much greater than my own.

  “No! Bad!” She swatted at her child, acting nothing like the nurturing mother I’d seen previously. The pup tumbled end over end, scratching her nose on a rock chip and wailing in protest. Her mother still did not relent.

  Instead, human fingers fumbled as they searched for the tether. Grabbing the elusive snake, she twisted. Yanked it into a knot at the base of her daughter’s tail.

  It pulsed, itched, pained us. The pup contorted herself but couldn’t reach the blockage. After a moment of trying, she shrieked out a protest instead.

  It hurt to lose access to her father. She wanted the toy she’d been denied.

  “This is for your own good, heart of my heart. It won’t hurt forever.”