Hounded

by Tasha Black

  God, it was like silk. And the way the water ran in rivulets over her breasts…

  “Practicing being a butterfly isn’t exactly safe,” Dulcie laughed.

  “I don’t know, you were really fast. And I noticed your wings were a different color on the underside,” Van offered. “That has to come in handy.”

  “They are?” Dulcie asked.

  “Yeah, they look just like dried leaves when they’re closed,” Van said. “Wait, you didn’t know that?”

  “I’ve never actually seen myself,” she said. “I don’t even know what kind of butterfly I am. Is that weird?”

  “What’s weird is how you have this gift and you don’t know anything about it,” Van said, annoyed now and very confused.

  “If your gift turned you into something that could be eaten by a chickadee or carried away by a brisk wind, you might feel differently,” she snapped.

  It was hard not to laugh. But he managed.

  Van squeezed a bit of soap onto his hands and began to massage her shoulders.

  The tension dropped from her face and she closed her eyes, allowing him to stroke and knead her soft skin.

  Van continued to bathe her, enjoying the sensory experience of humid air, warm skin, soft sighs, and the smell of her fruity soap competing with her own muskier scent.

  When she was perfectly clean all over, he kept stroking her, down her back and over her buttocks, between her breasts and down her belly.

  Dulcie was breathing lightly, her eyes closed, waiting.

  He leaned further in and lapped the clear water streaming from her chest.

  Her nipples jutted out beautifully. He teased one with the tip of his tongue.

  When she whimpered in response, he lapped at it, and then gave her the suction she craved.

  Dulcie arched her back and he moved to the other breast.

  His cock was throbbing madly in his jeans, but he focused on her breasts until her hips began to move.

  Though it was the hardest thing he was ever likely to do, he pulled away from her.

  “I know what you want, Dulcinea,” he said in the low voice women seemed to love.

  She blinked at him mutely. He imagined her body was still thrumming with desire. He knew his was.

  “I’m going to help you, but first I want to see that butterfly again,” he told her.

  “Why?” she moaned.

  “Because until you accept her, and love her, you are not your whole self,” he explained. “You need her more than you need me. You just don’t know it yet.”

  Dulcie sighed and turned off the water, then got out of the shower, grabbing a towel from the rack.

  “And,” he added. “Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that beautiful before.”

  She looked at him doubtfully, then dried her hair and wrapped the towel around herself like it was a little dress.

  How did women do that? It put the fancy dress she’d been wearing earlier to shame.

  “Come on, let’s talk,” she said, heading into her bedroom without looking to see if he was following.

  Van trotted after her. When she sat down and patted the bed beside her, he sat too.

  “Was being a shifter always a good thing for you?” she asked.

  He thought about it. Of course it wasn’t. He’d been afraid in the beginning, as she knew. And there was more. Something he’d never shared with anyone before.

  He wondered if she could hear it without hating him.

  “No,” he told her simply. “You know already how it was in the beginning for me. And it didn’t get better right away either.”

  “What was the worst of it?” she asked, her eyes alert.

  Van hesitated.

  “I fought,” he said finally.

  “I know you were a fighter. I’m fine with that,” she said.

  “The first time I stepped into a ring,” he said, looking away in shame, “it wasn’t as a human.”

  She was silent. He didn’t dare to look at her.

  “I was on the streets. And I was so angry, at everything. I was hungry most of the time. I spent a lot of time as a dog. It’s fucked up, but people were more likely to be kind to a stray dog than to a dirty, homeless kid.

  “One day, I was looking for food in an alley, when this man came up to me. He spoke to me kindly and coaxed me to him with food. Real food.

  “I knew he was bad news. But I was so desperate.

  “He brought me to a place where there were other dogs. That’s when I heard his plan.

  “He told the two other guys at the kennel that I was a Mastiff, bred to kill bears. He told them that I would be the best fighting dog they ever had.

  “They bought me from him and I was put in a cage beside the other dogs.

  “They tried to make me fierce. But in my dog I was always peaceful. I learned later that the man was wrong, my breed of Mastiff isn’t aggressive. They were bred specifically as pets, meant to protect the ones they love, not fight for sport.

  “I thought about trying to escape, but the cage was strong, and I was eating regularly for the first time in months.

  “One day, they brought me to a fight. It was dark and the crowd was screaming. They put me in a pen with another big dog, and he attacked.

  “At first I dodged, but finally he latched down on my shoulder. The pain was incredible.

  “Somehow I got free.

  “Then he came at me again.

  “This time he got my hind paw. I wrenched but he wouldn’t let go. Suddenly, my whole leg was warm with blood.

  “Then something clicked in my head, and I just went after him. I bit, I clawed, I smashed my teeth down on his neck and wouldn’t let go.

  “I knew it the instant he died. He was alive and struggling, and then there was just… nothing.

  “They got me out and my new owner wept with joy. They gave him money.

  “A vet looked at my toe and they amputated what was left of it then and there. It was excruciating but I almost welcomed the pain. I had killed an innocent creature who was as much a victim as I was.

  “That night, the man let me sleep on the floor by his bed.

  “As soon as he went to sleep, I shifted back for the first time in a month.

  “I crept out of the room and ran into the night.

  “I didn’t save the other dogs. I stole some of the man’s clothing and money and just kept going.”

  Dulcie put her hand over his.

  “That’s terrible, Van, but it isn’t your fault,” she began.

  “I fought again,” he cut her off.

  “A few months later. When the money ran out. I was broke. And hungry like I’d never imagined. I tried to put it off, to find another way, but I was running out of options.

  “I knew some of the older kids, the tough guys I looked up to then, that were into dog fighting. So I told them I found a dog. Begged them to let me have a fight. They laughed. Said no one would pay to see some street cur get chewed up and spit out.

  “But I wasn’t about to give up. I told them this was no ordinary dog. This was a Dogo Argentino, the only living descendant of the legendary Cordoba fighting dog. The greatest champion that ever lived.

  “That was all they needed to hear. A Dogo Argentino, like me, brought in top dollar. A lot of people were stupid enough to believe the legends.

  “I found my friend, Javier. Took him someplace off the beaten path. Told him I’d flush the dog out. Javier would handle it for the fight, and we’d split the money.

  “Killing the second dog was easier. Once I had the money in my pocket, I felt like I had finally found a way to use what I had to survive.

  “Javier and I fought three more times, before another shifter caught on.

  “After the fight, he came after me in the parking lot.

  “‘Son,’ he said, ‘I know you’re unhappy, but what you’re doing is an affront to yourself and your beast. Use that money to do something better.’

  “I told him I like
d to fight and that it was the only thing I was good at anyway.

  “He told me if I was going to fight, I needed to do it as a man.

  “He was right.

  “Since that night, I’ve done my fighting as a man, against opponents who knew what they were getting into. It took me all over the world.

  “Until something told me to give it up and come to Woodland Creek.

  “I should have told you that before things with us got this far. I’m not the bad boy type your mom warned you about - I’m just a bad person.”

  Dulcie squeezed his hand with her own.

  “You’re not a bad person,” she said.

  “Do you still want to go out on a limb to save me?” he asked.

  She nodded without speaking, tears sparkling in her eyes again.

  Was she sorry for him? Or did she understand he was accountable for his actions and forgive him anyway?

  The difference was important to him. He waited.

  “You did what you had to do,” she said. “You survived. You’ve carried the weight of it for too long. Now you need to set it down so you can go and do the good things that will make you forget the man you were, and be the man you are.”

  Van’s eyes burned with unshed tears. He bit the inside of his cheek hard, to keep the show of emotion inside.

  But when she reached up to stroke his cheek, the feelings got the better of him and he collapsed on his knees at her feet, burying his face in the towel around her waist and sobbing like a child.

  “Oh, Van,” she whispered.

  Then he felt her slide off the bed onto the floor next to him.

  She embraced him and when she rubbed her cheek against his it was wet from both their tears.

  He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her forehead. He wanted to taste her kindness, roll on his back in the light from her eyes. He could hardly believe she was real. He didn’t know what to do.

  But Dulcie did.

  She pulled him backward onto the pine floor and tugged at his jeans.

  A moment later he was inside her, reveling in the warm, soft, happiness of her body, basking in her gentle smile.

  He didn’t want to hurt her on the hard floor, but she was soon urging him faster and he slid a hand through her hair between her head and the wood, then drove into her.

  She squealed at the height of her pleasure and then laughed her way down just as he emptied himself inside her.

  Chapter 26

  Dulcie rested on Van’s chest for a long time, listening to the slow beat of his heart.

  Why had he looked to her for forgiveness?

  An idea of something hopeful began to form, and she chastised herself for it.

  Van was not the kind of guy who settled down.

  “Dulcie,” he sighed.

  “Yes?” she asked playfully.

  He began to sit up instead of answering, and so she sat up too.

  He stroked her cheek with one big hand.

  “Now that you’ve heard my story, I have to tell you one last thing,” he said. “Despite the hard times, I love being my dog. After all that happened and the things I did, I would not give him up for anything.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Is there really anything so bad about your shifting, when you compare it to mine?” he asked.

  Dulcie pressed her lips together.

  “Can you talk to me about it?” he asked.

  How could she say no after all he had shared?

  “My mother shifted into a weasel,” she began. “My father was a bear. My sister shifts into a fox, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I woke up in the night when I was a kid, my skin crawling, knowing that my time had come. I was delirious with happiness, basking there in the moonlight of my own safe bed. Thinking about the wonderful animals I might shift into any moment. Of course I had some I was pulling for - like a horse, a hawk or a panther.

  “Suddenly, I was folding in on myself, like a piece of origami, squeezed up so small I was lost in my own bedding.

  “It was dark. I could barely see or move.

  “I couldn’t call my mother. I couldn’t dash out the window into the moonlight to caper and howl like I always thought I would.

  “Instead, I was this tiny, fragile, thing. Vulnerable to birds and rats. Vulnerable to pesticides and walking feet. Vulnerable to my own family if they didn’t know it was me.”

  Dulcie paused.

  Van leaned forward, following the story intently. He bit his lip, and she wondered if he were trying not to speak.

  At length, she began again.

  “I told my mother the next day. She was horrified, she told me not to try to shift again. At the next moon she watched over me. She spent the whole night in her chair beside me, crying.

  When it was morning she held me close, and told me she loved me and that it didn’t matter to her that I was a caterpillar. But that I must never shift if I could help it, because something terrible could happen.

  “I tried my best. By the time a few more moons had come and gone I hardly ever changed during the moon.

  “When I was a teenager though, the pull was stronger, and I shifted again one night when I was about fifteen.

  “I was so excited to realize I was a butterfly instead of a stupid caterpillar. I sailed through the dark house, it was amazing.

  “Then the post lamp at the end of the garden walk caught my eye through the front window. It glowed like a beacon. I had to go to it.

  “The screen in that window didn’t pull down all the way. I managed to slide underneath and flutter across the lawn toward the light

  “There were two sounds at once.

  “The squeal of a bat, and the scream of my mother.

  “She had awoken in the night. She knew somehow that I was the butterfly. She ran outside and saved me just in time.

  “She was so mad. She wouldn’t speak to me for days.

  “I finally went to her. Told her I would never shift again unless I had to.

  “And I never have.”

  Her words hung in the air.

  “I’m sorry, Dulcie,” Van began.

  “But now I have to,” she said.

  “You don’t have to,” he told her.

  “I do. You’re right. I’ve always been afraid. Afraid of a new town, afraid of a new relationship, afraid of my own shadow. What you said was true, without the butterfly, I’m not my whole self. Without her, I’m not me.”

  “Is that how you really feel?” Van asked her.

  She nodded and unwrapped the towel.

  “Let’s go outside,” she said.

  Chapter 27

  Dulcie fluttered through a kaleidoscope of swirling color.

  The red of the leaves falling from the maple, the lush green of the grass, the blue of the porch, the warmth of Van’s dark eyes.

  Dulcie thought she could feel not only the breeze, but the rotation of the planet rippling through the infinitesimal scales that made up the soft down of her wings.

  Unafraid under Van’s watchful gaze, she flew, sweeping over the rhododendrons and diving into the chrysanthemums, then sailing higher and higher until she could only see the top of Van’s head through the leaves of the tree.

  She practiced landing on a branch, folding her wings up neatly behind her. Sitting still wasn’t easy, but it helped to hold her wings together that way so that she wouldn’t be half-lifted away by movement in the air.

  There was an earthquake as a squirrel landed on a higher branch, and she fluttered away again, spiraling down to Van.

  When she felt the rush that signified a bird’s approach, she dove into the weeds under the rhodies, and folded up her wings.

  Her body was a tiny icicle of panic, but as Van said it would, the bird gave up searching for her quickly.

  She flitted out of the weeds again, pleased as punch with her new trick.

  “Awesome!” Van shouted to her.

  She couldn’t resist riding the
current to him and resting on his cheek.

  He was perfectly still.

  Dulcie clung to the apple of his cheek, above the sharp landscape of his five o’clock shadow, flapping her wings occasionally to stay comfortable.

  She found herself rising up unexpectedly as he smiled hard.

  “You’re tickling me,” he whispered.

  She dove off him and whirled through the air madly, filled with delight that she had tickled him.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he told her earnestly.

  All she wanted was to hug him.

  Which meant shifting back.

  Dulcie felt like a child being told to leave the swimming pool. She was exhausted, her wings drooped, but she never, ever, ever, wanted to get out.

  Regretfully, she called to her other self and expanded into a swarm.

  The colors grew duller and her perspective higher, as she came together again as a woman.

  Van took the porch steps in a single bound and lifted her in his arms to spin her around.

  “You did it! How did it feel?” he asked her.

  She answered him with a long, slow kiss.

  He broke it suddenly, and looked up, a growl in his throat.

  Tires crunched on the gravel at the entrance to the long drive.

  “In, in, in!” she cried, mortified to be naked out in the yard. No one ever dropped by unannounced.

  They dashed into the house.

  Dulcie ran to her room and threw on a dress with no bra or underwear, it would have to do.

  She came back out to join Van in the living room, where he peeked out the window.

  He looked up when she came in and raised one eyebrow.

  When she saw Gil Holly’s gray sedan she understood Van’s amusement.

  But what was Gil doing here? She hadn’t seen him since that day he burst into her office and unloaded his tirade on Van. Judging from the angry red blotches on his cheeks, he was even more riled up this time.

  Dulcie opened the door and went out on the porch to head him off.

  “I know he’s here,” Gil told Dulcie with an accusing look. “I saw his motorcycle.”

  “Hi, Gil,” Dulcie replied as politely as she could. “How are you?”

  He edged past her into the house.

  Dulcie froze in his wake for a moment, amazed at his brazenness, then followed him in.