by Renee Carr
There was something about his reaction that was strange, but I didn’t ask any questions. I felt like he was holding something back, but at the same time, I felt like whatever he was holding back was for a good reason. I wasn’t the kind of girl to push, and whatever it was that he was holding back if it involved me, I knew he would eventually talk to me about it. It didn’t really matter anyway. I had spent so much time hoping for positive news about my father only to be let down over and over again. The hope eventually simmered out. My mother thought that I sat around and waited for him, but in reality, I knew the hard truth was that I probably would never see him again. I knew that Christian didn’t have any kind of information that I wanted about my father, and if I pushed him, the answer would probably just disappoint me.
With the discomfort, I changed the subject again, asking him about his job, his store, and his town. We finished dinner on a positive note, refreshing that connection we had before he left. All day I wondered what it would be like to be around him after watching him turn into a wolf, but any apprehension that I thought I would have had faded away as soon as I was in front of him. After putting the plates back on the tray and setting it by the door, I poured the two of us glasses of wine and we walked into the living room, sitting down on the couch.
The lights were dim, the room was comfortable, and the wine was tasty. I laughed as he told me stories about his childhood with his brothers, and how he used to tease them so badly but at the same time was so protective of them. It reminded me that I saw them earlier. “I forgot to tell you, I ran into your brothers earlier and let them know you were staying here. They were going back to your town and had wanted to see you, but I told them that you weren’t feeling well and that you asked to be left alone to rest. They understood, and they’re hoping they can see you this weekend.”
Christian put his glass of wine down on the table and rubbed his face, turning back to me. He put his arm across the back of the couch and leaned forward, kissing me on the cheek. “I appreciate you lying for me. I know it’s a difficult situation.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say back to that; it was a difficult situation but the choice was very clear to me. It was important that he be protected and that he find the answers. His head poked up and he looked over at the radio. “I love this song. I don’t listen to a lot of music but the song is great.”
“I love this song too,” I replied with a smirk. “Very romantic.”
He stood up and put his hand out, smiling widely at me. “Would you dance with me?”
I put my glass of wine down and took his hand, standing up and moving in close. I put my arms around his neck and we shuffled to an open area of the floor where we swayed back and forth, dancing together. I had never experienced anything like that before; it was a romantic and simple moment barefoot in the living room. It was the kind of romance they wrote about in books, and it had become my real life. Of course, so had the fact that the man I was dancing with randomly changed into a wolf on occasion, but I didn’t want to think about any of that. I just wanted to be close to him.
He lifted his hand and brushed my hair away from my face. My eyes shifted up and met with his. As we stared at each other, our feet began to slow and our bodies pressed closer together. The romance had sparked, exploding into lust and passion. Reaching up, he cupped my face with his hands and leaned in, kissing me long and hard. By the time he released me, I had to gasp for air, but I did it quickly before kissing him again.
As our lips caressed each other’s, my hands moved down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt. I pushed my palms beneath it and over his shoulders, pulling the shirt down his arms and dropping it to the floor. His skin was that same radiating temperature, but it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, it made me want to move in even closer. My palms smoothed up his body and through the back of his hair. I could feel the tips of his fingers pressing into my back as he moved them down to my butt and palmed both cheeks.
With one swift movement, he gripped onto me, lifting me up in the air and turning toward the couch. He sat down with me straddling him and rubbed his face across my chest. I lifted up my arms as he pulled my shirt up and over my head. My breasts heaved from the top of my bra, spilling out as he unclasped it. The feeling of his lips on my skin was intoxicating. I reached down below me and undid his pants, pushing up on my knees as he lowered them and his boxers down and off.
He pulled my skirt up, pushing it around my waist. Carefully, I lowered, pushing my panties to the side as I took him in. I didn’t want to wait any longer to feel him inside of me. Once I reached the base of his shaft, our eyes locked again and I began to grind against him. I leaned my head back as he suckled my breasts, groaning in pleasure.
I lifted up and then lowered back down, hearing a deep rumble in his chest. He gripped my waist and growled as he turned, throwing me down on the couch onto my back. I gripped onto my tits as he pulled my panties off and climbed up me. With a dip of his hips, he pushed back into me, wrapping my legs around his waist. My entire body wanted him, craved him, and prepared for pure ecstasy.
Putting his hands on my knees, he pushed my legs down and further apart, leaning over and kissing me deeply as he thrust his hips forward and back. My arms lifted over my head and pushed against the arm on the couch, allowing him more leverage and a deeper push. I screamed out in pleasure as our bodies intertwined, letting go of my hesitations and apprehensions. His mouth dropped slightly open as he thrust faster and faster.
I could tell he was holding back, waiting for me. Just the thought of it sent me tipping over the edge. My chest arched into the air and my head tilted back as the orgasm exploded inside of me. He groaned loudly, sitting up on his knees. His hands still gripped my waist, holding me limply as I disappeared for a moment into my own pleasure. He slammed harder into me, intensifying everything. Once, twice, and on the third thrust, he pushed hard and deep.
His entire body went stiff in front of me and he moaned, his cock pulsating and exploding inside of me.
Again, we shared that moment of lust and then snuggled into each other on the couch, breathing heavily and recovering in each other’s arms. The pull between us was unbelievable, and we lay there, not speaking, just staring into each other’s eyes.
17
Christian
“Take a deep breath,” Arthur said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
I was bent down on one knee, breathing heavily. I had changed in and out of my wolf several times already, but Arthur needed me to do so without really even thinking about it. It was hard and painful, but it was necessary.
Arthur began to walk around me, still in his human form. “You have to remember that while I want you to change without thinking about it, that means that you have to be one with your wolf. Basically, when you think subconsciously that you need to change, whether it’s to go for a run, be with your pack, or face danger, your wolf knows that and you don’t have to say anything consciously to it. You smoothly transition as one.”
I let out a deep breath and shook my head. “I feel like this will never be a smooth transition. In my chest, I could feel my wolf upset with me. Does it feel the pain that I feel?”
Arthur shook his head. “You’re thinking about it all wrong. It’s not the fact that it feels what you feel. The two of you are one entity. One soul. If you think about the duality of it, you’ve got your human side and your natural side. Nurture versus nature. Your human side is more nurture, created from societal views, upbringing, and emotion. Your wolf is your primal instinct. It’s the base fight-or-flight instinct that everyone has, except yours manifests as your wolf. While it may seem sometimes that your wolf is a separate entity because you can feel emotions, those emotions are coming from you. It’s complicated to fully understand unless you get into it and create that connection between the two sides.”
I lifted my eyebrow at Arthur and blinked. “Who knew turning into a wolf would be that deep? Okay, I’ll do it again, this time clearing my mind.”
I had to learn to control myself. Keeping myself on all fours, naked, wrestling through the leaves, I cleared my mind and let whatever wanted to come into it approach. I could see Libby as soon as my eyes shut, her beautiful face, her smile. I let that take me, moving through the motions of getting closer and closer to her. As I did, in my mind, my body shrank down and I was looking up at her from a different vantage point. She reached out her hand toward me and rubbed it across my head. What would normally come out as a human sigh instead came out as a whimper.
My eyes shot open, realizing that I was no longer in my human form. My strong wolf muscles tensed and relaxed, my paws flexed, my tail wagged back and forth, and the fur running along my spine stood on edge. I had changed, and this time I didn’t even feel it. Again, Libby had been the key.
“Good,” Arthur said with excitement. “Very good. Now, begin to walk around and learn to control not only your body but your mind as well. You’ll find as your wolf you have keener senses, quicker thinking. It’s every single bit of instinct that was born into you. It’s a powerful thing and it’s not your fingertips.”
One foot, or paw, in front of the other, I walked around the clearing where the cave was. Focusing on the boulder next to the opening of the cave, I leaped up, balancing on the top of it. It was exciting, and when I looked for Arthur, instead of the middle-aged man, I found his wolf seated comfortably watching me.
“Very good,” he said, his voice echoing in my mind.
“I feel like it’s coming together,” I replied. “What are we doing now?”
Arthur chuckled in my head. “Now we’re going to learn how to defend ourselves in a fight. After that, we’ll hunt prey and do a little bit more shifting back and forth to make sure you’re really getting rid of that pain. I know how it can be. And if you’re shifting in an emergency, that can blind you for a moment, which can be dangerous.”
I hopped down from the boulder and made my way over to him. Instantly, he was on his feet and we began to spar. We circled around each other, a low grumble in our chests. Feeling a bit too ambitious, I took off running straight for him and leaped in the air. As I soared straight for him and my paws were just inches from him, he reared back and slammed his body into me. I flew through the air and hit the ground, sliding through the leaves and dirt until I stopped at the base of a tree. A whimper vibrated from my chest and I could feel the searing pain in my ribs and back.
Hearing the sound of claws in the crumpling leaves, I finally opened my eyes. Arthur leaned down and nudged me with his nose. “Are you okay?”
I breathed deeply, suddenly no longer feeling the pain. Carefully, I climbed back to my feet and shook my body, letting my long fur ruffle. “I am now. But when I hit the ground, I seriously thought I broke every bone in my body. It was definitely painful.”
Arthur stared at me with his deep golden eyes. “And you may very well have broken something. One thing that you need to know about wolves is that in our wolf form, we tend to heal pretty fast. In fact, you can heal from almost anything. I say almost because a bullet to the heart, a beheading, or dismemberment would be the things you don’t come back from. You also need to know that if a wolf changes back into its human form before its wounds are healed, the human takes on those wounds. Sometimes it’s out of your control; a wounded wolf shifter will often retreat back into its human form and that can be deadly if you have a deep gash or broken bones. It’s important when you get injured to really concentrate on hanging on to that wild side of you.”
We continued the training throughout the day and into the evening. By the end, I was exhausted. Arthur had me change back into my human form and gave me some warm clothes to put on since the evening air was getting colder. I sat down next to him on a log and he handed me a bag of trail mix and a bag of jerky. “Eat this.”
I was famished. “Thanks. I really worked up an appetite.”
“And you’ll continue to do so. Shifters have to eat more because our metabolism is so high. Even in our human form.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think I’ll complain about that. I like to eat.”
Arthur gave me a weary smile, and I could tell that there were a lot of things floating around his head. It made me wonder what he had seen, what his story was. “Can you tell me about the dark shifters that are roaming the woods?”
Arthur looked up in the distance, his jaw clenching. “There’s a pack of them. They have very little morals, a thirst for danger. A thirst for blood, really, and have no qualms against going out in public as their wolves. They’ve also been hunting down shifters like you and me. I’ve been trying to protect this town, and the surrounding towns, from them, but being on my own, it all became a bit too much. Luckily now there are more people in my pack.”
There was an instinct in me now that I didn’t have before. I was always a caring person and wanted to help where I could, but this was almost primal. “I want to help you find them. I want to put them in their place so they don’t hurt anyone else.”
Arthur flashed a small grin. “And I would love you to be part of the pack, but first you need to get stronger and faster. It’s already my fault that you have become a shifter, I don’t want to lose you in a battle because you weren’t ready yet. The other shifters could easily kill you.”
I finished up my food, listening intently to him talk. When I was done, I looked up through the canopy of the trees, seeing that it was quickly becoming nighttime. “I think from now on I should start coming at night. It’s going to keep a lot of the questions away.”
Arthur nodded. “I agree. Hunting is better at night anyway.”
Wolf or not, the idea of chasing down a squirrel and biting through it was very appetizing. I stood up and straightened myself out, getting ready to head back out of the woods. Before I did, I turned back to Arthur curiously. “Is there anything that I can do for you, anything back in the regular world? If you have family or friends that you want me to contact, I can do that.”
Arthur paused as if he was going to say something, but then quickly waved his hand away and diverted his eyes. “No, but thank you very much. It’s nice to not be alone anymore and have someone looking out for me.”
Shaking Arthur’s hand, I wondered who he was before he was bitten. He was contemplative as a shifter, and I could tell he had a warm heart, a big one. Thinking about Libby, I really hoped that I didn’t have to become a recluse like Arthur had.
18
Libby
I propped my chin on my hand and smiled at Christian across the breakfast table. He popped a piece of bacon in his mouth and laughed wildly. “I can already see it. Some grumpy old lady, giving you a hard time, and you give nothing but smiles to her. How many times has someone thrown their bedpan at you?”
I wrinkled my nose, shaking my head. “Ew, no! I’ve never had that happen. Knock on wood, I’ve never had to deal with feces. Not directly, anyway.”
We both laughed, letting it trickle off into a calm silence. I glanced over at his boots, muddy on the bottom and sitting next to the front door. It had been two weeks since he had become a wolf. It had been two weeks of him leaving every night and coming back every morning. He was secretive about it, and I had learned to pretend I didn’t know he was leaving when he got up out of the bed in the middle of the night. It was hard, though—I was worried about him.
I glanced down at my plate and then back up at him, watching as he shoveled eggs into his mouth. “Christian, I’ve been putting this off, this question, but I guess I’m just kind of curious where you’ve been going every night.”
He chewed a bit slower for a moment and then shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. I’ve just been out looking for clues. Anything to tell me what’s going on.”
Biting my bottom lip nervously, I nodded at him. “You need to be careful. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Have you been shifting into your wolf?”
He bit into another piece of bacon, his eyes still avoiding mine. “I have, a couple of
times out in the woods. I’m learning to control it, though, and hope to get to the point where I don’t need to worry about the shift. That I can keep it from happening if I need to. It may be a long way off but that’s my goal.”
I reached across the table and squeezed his hand, just wanting to reassure him that I was there for him. That he could tell me anything. “Don’t forget that you have a doctor’s appointment this morning.”
He tilted his head back and rolled his eyes. “I completely forgot. Is there any way that you could cancel it for me? Or reschedule it? I’m having lunch with Eric and then I need to leave and go figure a few more things out. We both know that the doctors aren’t going to be able to help me.”
“I know,” I said, not really liking the fact that he was skipping another doctor’s appointment. “I just really want to make sure that everything else is okay, you know? But I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to go. We can’t let the doctors figure out what’s going on with you; it would put you in a lot of trouble and a lot of danger.”
He shook his head solemnly. “I know. They would want to know exactly what I was. They would probably take me in and perform all kinds of experiments on me. Human beings are curious creatures, and we don’t like it when we don’t have answers. Unfortunately, we forget that people are sentient beings sometimes and that it’s not nice to hold someone captive and run experiments on them. I don’t want to even put myself in that position.”
Just the thought of that made my stomach jump. “We can’t have that happen to you, and I know it wouldn’t be my doctors that did it, but with something like this, a larger entity would definitely step in and take over. It’s not worth it. Not unless you’re in danger from it.”
