The cougar rocketed into Jed and sent him flying in a yelping tangle of dark fur mixed with tan. The next second, it was off again—not engaging at all: a mountain lion drive-by.
By the time it was hurtling off across the rocks for the next stand of trees, Jed was on his feet and pounding after it. Kage and Jason leapt from the same ledge to follow. The cat hadn’t meant to land on Jed in the first place, only running from those two wolves already. Jed, having heard it, was deliberately trying to intercept.
Heart pounding, I could only watch with Isaac and Zar as the four predators tore off over rough ground, up another slope, and out of sight into the scrubby spruce trees. So they got their cat chase after all. Probably feeling pretty cocky now that they had three of them as well. I prayed they wouldn’t catch it. The cougar would know this country, where to go, what to do. I wasn’t sure which could run faster, but the cat could jump farther and also climb.
Never having seen a wolf, it’d probably had a go at one of them up on those high ridges, either running into each other, or stalking them. It had clawed off more than it could chew.
Isaac looked up.
I followed his gaze to Andrew on the ridge above us.
The red wolf was panting, his long, pink tongue dripping and dusty. The canine backpack was also filthy from him dragging himself across the ground. Maybe he’d rolled around, trying to get it off.
The sight of him made me suspicious. “You didn’t start that, did you? That thing could kill one of them. Not to mention we shouldn’t be harassing the local wildlife. A single large kill to feed all of you for the whole trip is one thing. You have no call to be chasing a cougar.”
Andrew cocked his head, shutting his mouth and giving me a stare that was unmistakably incredulous.
“No… Sorry. Let’s go. I hope they have the sense not to corner it.”
We walked on after the four vanished figures, up to the spruces, where we waited and listened. Andrew followed slowly a long way behind.
“Hear anything?” I asked.
Zar shook his head.
“They could be a mile away by now,” Isaac said. “We’ll have to go on.”
“What if someone’s hurt? If we can’t find them we need to at least wait.”
“If they don’t want to be hurt, maybe they shouldn’t chase cougars,” Zar said, glaring off to the trees.
“They’ll be all right,” Isaac said. He took the backpack from Zar, who then offered to carry mine.
I shook my head. “I’ve fixed it. It’s fine.” Reluctantly, I moved on with them, wishing I knew what was happening, hoping the cat was miles away and the wolves were coming back.
We heard nothing more, though, and went on until the sun was ready to set and it was time to make camp.
We still hadn’t found the main trail, worrying me, though no one else seemed to notice. Nor could we find another idyllic campsite meadow or pond. After rocks, rocks, and more rocks, I was glad just to find an almost level patch in trees that was smooth and earthy enough to pitch the tent.
Zar pitched it for me while I passed around water to everyone, including Andrew, who drank from an empty chip bag that I held after I removed his Malamute sack. Then he rolled on the dry earth, kicking up so much dust I yelled at him to move away. He took himself off about three feet from the tent and rolled again, scrubbing his bare back across the ground, dragging himself around like a land shark, propelling forward with his hind paws to rub chest and belly as well as flipping on his back.
“You are a pill,” I told him. “Do you say that in England? A prat? A lout? A cheeky sod?”
Andrew lashed his tail, as if in total agreement, and rolled again.
“You really need to change, don’t you?”
He ignored me. Anyway, I didn’t suppose it would hurt him. Jed had remained in fur for months at a time when he’d stayed with the Beeches. It might be disorienting for them after a couple days like that since they weren’t used to it, but shouldn’t do them any harm.
Jed had once told me it aged them faster to stay in fur. He was referring to such scenarios as him staying with the Beeches, though. Months, years, not a few days.
Someone was stepping up behind me.
I looked back the way we’d come. “Do you think they’re all right?”
“They’ll be along.” Zar touched my arm. “Wore themselves out with a chase. Don’t worry if it takes them a while.”
I nodded. My hair was in a ponytail and Zar kissed the back of my neck. I was too worried to engage—plus Isaac was also behind us. But I shifted to hug him, then returned to the tent with Zar to find dinner.
Another awkward evening: Isaac and Zar in skin with me without anyone else around.
Andrew had said how possessive Isaac was. I didn’t see it. In fact, I thought Isaac awfully tolerant. He knew I was involved with others and he focused on the time he and I had together—not anything else about my personal life.
I realized that night, eating my hot dinner, sharing snacks with them while we talked about Wyoming, that it was possible Andrew was correct. Indeed, Isaac was so stiff and formal, while Zar was so distant—not touching me, not being much of a listener either—I wished for any other possible combination of two bipedal companions.
I didn’t feel like Isaac was possessive. Perhaps, though, the rest of them did. Because … perhaps he was. In body language and subtleties. In the way he placed himself and his expectation that time between him and myself would be only about him and myself. Whereas the others, even if they grew jealous, even if they performed stealth attacks on their brothers to throttle them, nevertheless lived with a certain expectation that my attention was divided.
We’d finished and had a flashlight on, me telling them they had to change, before any of the hunting party showed up.
It was Kage and Jason, padding in like wandering strays, Jason limping in Kage’s wake. Kage barged past Isaac and Zar to give me a wagging greeting and licked my hand since I was quick enough to cover my face. He accepted a drink from the chip bag, interrupted by Jason, who nosed in. I refilled the bag, cupping it in my hand, and both drank for a long time.
“You okay?” I asked Jason when he came up for air. He looked around. “If you need to change and heal, your clothes are in that sack.” I pointed to the side of the tent.
They both changed, out of the light by the bags, and muttered over Jason’s arm.
“Where’s Jed?” I asked.
“No idea,” Kage said.
“Really?” I was exasperated.
“Not his keepers.” He yawned.
“Jason? Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just clawed me. Did you see that cat?” Chuckling.
“Bloody feline dragon,” Kage said appreciatively.
“I wish you wouldn’t…” I sighed. “Forget it. I would feel better if someone found Jed before we’ve turned in.”
“Yeah…” Zar mumbled. “Moon bless, Cass.” As he stood, he leaned in to kiss me, quick, tense, as if someone might kick his feet from under him for doing it.
Then, pulling off his shirt, he stepped around to the far side of the tent from Kage and Jason—who were giggling over their adventure—out of sight from me as I had my back to it.
Isaac also kissed me, also stood, and assured me they would get us back to the trail tomorrow for the descent toward Estes Park. I was glad he’d noticed I was concerned about wanting the trail without having said much about it.
Andrew lay beside me, forearms out, head up, having been participating in dinner snacks. I looked down at him.
“Will you help find Jed?”
He gave me a blank stare, yawned, then stood, stretched, and walked into the tent, where I heard him flop down with a sigh on my sleeping bag.
I had to laugh a little at that. It was true he hadn’t had a turn “indoors” so far.
“Okay. I’m going to get ready for bed. They’ll bring him back.”
While I tried to shut my ears both to Isaac a
nd Zar changing, and Kage and Jason snickering and whispering—which annoyed me as I thought of the terrorized local wildlife—I rummaged in the mouth of the tent and my backpack for my toothbrush. Andrew was apparently dissatisfied. He dug up my sleeping bag, turning in tight circles and wadding the whole thing into a pillow-like mass.
Going to bed out here was a bit of an ordeal, especially in the dark. As Isaac and Zar left, I exited the tent to brush my teeth, find a toilet spot, wash hands and face with towelettes and water, and return very carefully to the glowing tent with the light inside.
Jason and Kage had also moved away from the tent. I heard them before I saw them, startled by the quiet voices since I’d assumed the skin change was only for as long as it took to get their breaths back and Jason to heal. Too cold to stay like this.
I spotted them only by scraps of moonlight and faint blue of the tent.
Their exhausting chase had stimulated them. Kage had found the nylon leash in the sacks and had Jason tied to a tree so tight with the prong collar Jason’s face was against it, his hands clutching the trunk. Kage held onto his hips, biting the back of his neck, knocking Jason against the tree with each quick thrust.
I felt much better tonight. Not so sore after a day of a weightless pack. Feet only slightly worse. I’d even managed a bit of a shower and a hot dinner. Not to mention, the biggest saving grace, sleeping last night. This was probably why I wanted to unsnap the leash and lead them back to the tent with me when I saw them like that.
I would have, too, if not for recent lessons about being more thoughtful and responsible about the feelings of others, and the little voices in my own head about respect.
One knowing I was involved with others was not the same thing as me sending one off to do something only to take the others to bed while he was away. I had no idea if Zar and Isaac would be gone for two minutes or two hours. Anyway, it didn’t matter. One of these things was not like the other. Context mattered so very much in this weird, plural relationship we had going on.
Anyway, as of a week ago, Kage and Jason had been completely split up because of me. Now, they’d been awfully cozy on this trip and I was grateful.
I swallowed, skin tingling, breaths a bit short, and went on back to the tent with no more than a pause when I spotted them.
I thought of Isaac the night we’d arrived in Denver, my “dream” and him teasing me about it. Tomorrow night, I hoped, we’d be back in a motel in Wyoming. Would that be any help? Piled together again?
Just chill. It doesn’t matter. You’re here to do a job. Not to advance your relationships or try a threesome.
Andrew was curled in a neat ball on my sleeping bag, which he’d also somehow swirled into a ball on the thin camp pad it now rested in the middle of.
“Huh.” I stared at him as I crept into the lit tent on my knees. “Very creative. You’ll need to move, though.”
The black tip of Andrew’s tail, which was curled around his nose, twitched. He didn’t bother opening an eye.
I crawled in, half-zipped the flap so another wolf could fit in, then changed into the long underwear. My teeth were chattering violently by the time I was trying to struggle into my sleeping bag. At least getting the current occupant to move didn’t end up being much trouble.
“Andrew!”
He opened his eyes to find a fistful of blue magic light in his face and leapt back with a yelp. He hit the tent wall and probably would have torn the stakes from the ground and ripped the whole thing over if I’d driven them in. Zar had tonight, though, and the tent held.
I sorted out my sleeping bag and zipped it up around me. Flashlight out, rolled up shirt for a pillow, I shivered my way down into the folds that I found nicely warmed up for me.
“Thank you,” I said. “You can lie over here now.”
Andrew crept to me and nosed into the fold of the bag.
“Not in here. Over here. Lie down.”
He nudged insistently, wedging his head down against my face, past my shoulder, and into the dark, warm depths of the sleeping bag.
“You’ve got to be kidding. First of all, you won’t even fit. Second, you’re filthy. You’re a walking Rocky Mountain soil sample. Just lie down. Andrew—”
He tunneled in, forcing back the zipper with a sharp vvvip sound, his face reaching my stomach.
I sat up and more of the bag unzipped. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?”
Andrew looked around as his shelter was snatched from him.
He wagged his tail in my face, then shifted, flipping ends to settle against me, head on my shirt roll, long and flat like a wolf missile so I could zip us both in.
My exasperation faded as I looked down at him in the dark—huddled close against me—thinking of the nest he’d made for himself. I stroked his face—nose and large, upright ears frigid.
“Are you cold?”
He wriggled closer.
“Did you curl up with Kage and Jason last night after you’d all been roaming?” I stroked down the close coat and ribs that I could easily feel. He had no body insulation. “Sorry, Andrew. I didn’t know you were so cold out here. But you can’t stay in my sleeping bag. We wouldn’t be able to zip it. Or be packed like sardines so we couldn’t move. I can’t sleep like that. Hang on.”
I retrieved their one shared coat for anyone needing it in skin out of the guy’s backpack just outside the flap. I sat back in the sleeping bag, still shivering, and bundled what layers I could around Andrew: their coat and my own, my dry little towel, and one of my shirts that I wrapped around his neck like a scarf.
Andrew curled up against me with his covers while I huddled back down in the zipped bag. He still had his face by mine and I leaned my forehead against his.
“Better?” I stroked the silky fur at the base of his large ear with a thumb. “Are you familiar with the story of the boy who cried wolf? I never know when to take you seriously and when not to. But I have to default to ‘not serious.’ We need a … safe word. You know? Although I’d be afraid you’d abuse that too…”
I listened to wolves dashing about, at first thinking it was Kage and Jason newly changed back for the night, soon sure it was more than two.
I waited, then finally called softly, “Jed? Everyone all right?”
In a moment, a great, black bulk blotted out the front of the tent as Jed shoved his way in.
“You’re okay? All back safe?”
Jed took another step, apparently ready to come in and flop down with us, then stopped. He’d caught smell of Andrew and withdrew as if having stepped into swamp water.
“Jed, it’s fine. You can stay over…”
But he was already gone.
Zar took his place. He also sniffed at the heap of Andrew under our coats, curled up at my shoulder, then circled and flopped against us both. Zar let out a sigh and rested his head across my waist below the sleeping bag. I was sure he also wished we had a motel room.
Chapter 19
Trail, van, showers at the campground, back on the road. No more sign of bears or mountain lions. The only run-in we did have was with human beings.
We’d grown so lax, including me, we weren’t paying much attention following the main trail back down—at a much better pace than we’d gone up. Zar, who was padding along at my heels with a Malamute sack on—while Jed was my silent skin companion again—barely heard in time and dived off the trail as a couple of Labrador retrievers bounded up to us fifty feet ahead of their owners on the trail.
The black and yellow pair took off into the forest after him, hackles up, sniffing wildly. The human couple shouted as they ran up, gasping.
“Storm! Dakota! Storm, come!” The people were clearly shocked that their obedient dogs would vanish.
I wasn’t worried about them catching Zar—who could have outrun them on three legs. Nor that he might take a notion to scuffle with them for yucks, as some of the others might have done. But I did wonder if Storm and Dakota would ever come home.
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br /> I told the couple we’d just seen a coyote on the trail and we went on. It was forty-five minutes before Zar checked in again and I thanked him and told him to stay away until we all met up in the valley for them to change before the campsite.
The only other mild snag was Jason’s antler. Maybe he’d been jealous of Jed’s steak bone. Whatever the motivation, Jason, Kage, and Andrew finally joined us with Jason carrying a six-point elk antler. A few tips already showed signs of gnawing.
It was two and a half feet long and must have weighed four or five pounds at least, but Jason arched his neck at sight of the rest of us, wagging his tail, as pleased as if he’d been carrying his own firstborn from the forest.
“What are you going to do with that?” I placed my hands on my hips.
Isaac also watched him. After the morning with Jed, and very halting conversation about what he’d smelled and enjoyed about the area, he’d changed back for a final few hours running around the Rockies and Isaac had kept me company. Jed and Zar were changing and dressing with clothes from Zar’s sack. Kage had his, Jason’s, and Andrew’s things with him. I’m not sure how Andrew had again managed to be out of sight every time a Malamute sack needed assigning.
“It’s not like you can take it home on the plane. And where are you even going to put it in the van? In your lap?” I sighed as he went on wagging his tail, prancing up to me, offering the mighty antler. I knew he didn’t want to play fetch. “Fine. I’ll keep it safe for you. You all change. Kage, come on, I’ll get the sack off.”
I returned the antler to Jason once all six were dressed and on their feet—besides Andrew, who was sitting down to put his shoes on, dazed and disheveled.
“This isn’t going to cause trouble, is it?” I asked as I handed it back to Jason—like handing over a tree.
“Trouble? It’s beautiful.” Jason beamed at it, stroking the points, cradling it lovingly. “Won’t it be brilliant on the bones?”
“On your bowl of bones? It’s too big. It would fill the table.”
“Or hanging on the wall? By the drum?”
“That’s more like it, I suppose. But you can’t—”
Moonlight Journey: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 6) Page 13
