by Jena Wade
A very naked, and very human, Thorne.
“Thorne?” I said. I threw my arms around him and he held me tight.
He kissed my neck and I ran my hands down his arms, loving the feel of Thorne’s skin. His fur was soft as a wombat, and his skin was similar. Smooth and glorious. I loved him in all forms, but damn, seeing him as a man, there was nothing else like it in the world. His kiss ignited a fire in me unlike anything I’d ever felt.
Thorne climbed me like a polecat. His legs wrapped around my waist as he clung to me. My head clouded with desire and I clamored for a grip on reality.
I chuckled and pushed gently at his shoulders. “We should talk this time, Thorne,” I said.
“We can later. Just kiss me,” he growled.
I complied, because I longed for his kisses just as much as he longed for mine. We hadn’t gotten to do any kissing the last time he was in the flesh. His lips crushed against mine. His mouth opened for me and my tongue touched his, filling my senses with his taste, touch, and scent. He tasted and smelled like cinnamon. It was nearly enough to have me coming in my pants.
Thorne rubbed against me, his hips gyrating against me, and I groaned. I gripped his hips to hold him steady. If there was any hope for me finding a way to help my mate, we needed to talk first.
“The dark healer that had you held captive,” I said as I came up for breath. “Can you tell me about her?”
It was as if I’d thrown a cold bucket of water on him. He paled, and nodded ever so slightly. “Canin and I were playing in the backyard of my wisdom,” Thorne said. His tone was sad and hollow, like he retold a story he’d heard once and not one that had happened to him.
“Your what?”
He chuckled. “It’s what a pack of wombats is called. Haven’t you been doing your research?”
He knew I had. I found a book at the local library on wombats and Thorne had cuddled up with me in the evening to look at pictures while I read. Apparently I hadn’t caught everything.
“Yeah. Yes. I just… hearing it out loud sounds kind of funny.”
“Oh, and pack sounds better?” he asked.
I kissed his cheek. “Easy there, Prickles.”
He glared at me and I laughed.
“That was the best you could come up with?” he said. His lips turned down in a frown, and his bottom one stuck out in a pout. They were still red and swollen from our kiss.
I brushed the pad of my thumb over it. “Hey, it really fits. Knowing that your name is Thorne, it’s especially perfect.”
He chuckled. His smile lit up his face and caused my heart to leap in my chest. “I don’t mind the name,” he said shyly.
“Oh, I love seeing you smile,” I said.
“I love being able to smile. I never thought…” He ran his hand down my cheek. His gaze roved over my face. “I never dreamed any of this could be possible. After I was taken, I lost myself for a little bit. I’m still lost.” He shuddered and looked away. “Even when I’m in my wombat form, I sometimes forget that I’m human. It’s… confusing. The memories that are coming back, I’m… I’m not sure how long I’ll have them for.”
“I’m sorry, baby. It’s safe here. You’re safe here, safe with us.”
“Thank you,” he said.
I swept him up into my arms and cradled him against me. I buried my nose into his neck and inhaled. My mate’s scent flooded my nostrils and my wolf howled with delight. I had spent time with Thorne in my wolf form, while he was in his wombat form, so my wolf knew him. Now my wolf wanted to meet the human that was the other half of our soul. He clawed at the surface, whining to be let go.
Thorne chuckled. “I can feel your wolf. He is strong.”
I grinned. “He is. I think your wombat could give him a run for his money, though.” Thorne’s wombat, though smaller than a wolf, could likely put up a hell of a fight. Not that I would ever try with my mate.
“You could say we’re… prickly.” His grin faded and he sighed. His eyes turned sad. “I think I learned that from my mom. She was tough. Hard as nails, and fierce when it came to protecting my brother and me. I… I wonder where they are now.”
I carried Thorne to the living room and I sank to the floor with him in my arms. “We’re looking. We’re being careful, but we are looking. Can you tell me more about them? Maybe that would help us to locate them.”
“Do you think they’re alive? It’s been so long, Gio. Anything could have happened.” Thorne’s shoulders shook and his breath hitched, tears pooling in his eyes. “The dark healer always told me they were dead, but sometimes she’d say they forgot about me, that they didn’t want me. I knew they were lies, but after hearing them for so long…”
I wanted to give him hope, wished like hell I could tell him it would all be fine and that he’d see his family again. But I couldn’t lie. “I don’t know, baby. I really don’t. I will stop at nothing to find them, though. We are looking, but—”
“It’s hard because if you put out the word that you have a wombat, then the dark healer could find me?”
I nodded.
He closed his eyes and molded himself against me. “I feel safe with you, Gio. I haven’t felt safe in so long. Even when I was with my family, we were in hiding, I think.”
My grip tightened around him. I vowed that I’d never let him go. If he wanted to live in my arms, I’d find a way to make it work.
“I was eighteen when the dark healer found me and my brother alone in the forest. We didn’t live in a city, or even in a pack like what you have. It was just me, my mom and dad, their parents, and my brother. We had a cottage in the forest.” His eyes squinted as he spoke. It was as if he watched the memories inside his mind. “We only had a few visitors over the years. I never knew anyone except my family. We… we were hiding? Do you think my family knew the dark healer wanted us? Why?”
My hands came up and cupped his face gently. “I don’t know, love. We’ll find out, okay? I promise.” Gods, I hoped I wasn’t lying to my mate. I’d do anything it took to take his pain away and reunite him with his family.
“I was sneaking out. I wanted to see what the city was like. Canin followed me. It was late in the night, and we were in the woods. The dark healer appeared out of nowhere. She just appeared out of thin air. We ran and I hid Canin in a hollowed out tree, but she didn’t stop looking. I didn’t want her to find my family, I didn’t want her to find Canin. I… I let her catch me.”
I kissed the side of his head as tears ran down his face. “Do you think Canin is okay? My mom… she loved us so much. She only ever wanted to keep us safe and I—I let myself get caught.”
Hugging him, I rocked us on the floor. “It’s not your fault. You did what you had to to keep your brother safe.” He’d been so brave and he didn’t even see it. He did what most people never could. He gave up his future for someone he loved.
“But what if he isn’t? It’s been years, Gio. Four or maybe five? A decade? I don’t even know how old I am.”
“We’ll find your family, Thorne. We’ll kill the dark healer and all of this will be a bad memory. I swear it.”
Thorne sobbed as I held him. Grieving for the lost years with his family. Grieving for the lost years as himself.
Eventually his tears dried and I just held him.
Thorne pulled in a breath and his shoulders squared, as if steeling himself for a fight. “We need to tell Lissy to bring her light healer friend here or do the training she talked about. I know that it’s a risk, but if she’s up to it, then we should at least try. I can’t help find my family if I’m stuck as a wombat half the time. I could shift any moment and not come back.”
My stomach clenched. It was true, and I knew it, but I didn’t like hearing it out loud.
“Can you get me a pen and paper? I’ll write down everything I know about my family, me, the dark healer. Writing might help make sense of my thoughts.”
I grimaced. “Are you sure, Thorne? It’s already been a difficult time an
d I—”
“I have to, Gio. It will be hard, but I have to. We have to find them.”
The determination in his voice filled me with pride. My mate was strong. I nodded. “Wait here.”
I gathered a notebook and a pen and came back to him. He had moved to sitting next to the coffee table and I handed him the paper.
We sat together the entire time he wrote all he knew. The memories seemed to be fuzzy at first, then they came with more intensity. He told me all about his family and his childhood with his younger brother Canin.
Canin was special to him, that I could tell. I vowed I would reunite the two.
I would do whatever it took to heal the wounds inflicted on my mate by the dark healer.
After he finished writing all he could think of, he climbed back into my lap. He had several sheets of a paper filled with notes that me, Lissy, and the other Betas could sift through later.
I nuzzled into him. “I want to claim you, Thorne. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes? To a wombat, anyway. We’d be forever mates, right?”
I nodded. “We’re fated. Paired together forever, claiming you means that I will never have another and neither will you. Not for as long as we live.”
Thorne pushed away from me and cold air hit me where his warmth once was.
“We can’t.” His gaze lowered and he wouldn’t look at me. “Not… not until we know for sure that I’m not cursed forever.”
“Thorne—” I reached for him, but he moved away.
“I can’t trap you into a mating when we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You could find someone else—” His voice broke and he looked away from me. “You could have children. But with me, we don’t know for sure that—”
“I don’t care, Thorne. I want you, not anyone else. If children aren’t in our future, then that’s okay. I just want you.”
His eyes brimmed with tears and I wrapped my arms around him. The emotions of the day spilled over until he sobbed against me.
“I have you, Thorne. I am never letting you go.”’
Chapter Eight
Thorne
My shift was completely outside of my control and I hated it. From one moment to the next I didn’t know if I was going to be having a conversation with Gio or bumping him with my nose to get his attention.
But it was all I had and every moment I wore my skin I wanted to make the most of it.
“How are things in there?” Gio called into the bathroom. I imagined there was a time in my life it would’ve annoyed the daylights out of me to be checked up on while doing my business, but now? I understood. More than once he’d left me alone in a room only to return to find me in my fur and often not even there.
“Just about done.” I set my toothbrush in my cup and squinted at my image in the mirror at a little mark on my forehead. At first glance I thought maybe it was a dark hair, like one of my beast’s, and panic started to rise. But nope. It was just a small pimple.
What silly thing, to be excited for a pimple.
I shrugged, almost gleeful for its existence, and headed out the door and straight into his arms. It was my favorite place to be. “Do you have to work today?” The last thing I remembered he was telling me he had off, but my mind still flitted in and out and for all I knew, my wombat had had full control for a week or more since then.
“The whole day off.” He squeezed me tight. “Why are you worried about asking me that? And don’t say you aren’t, I could feel your body tense up.”
“I didn’t know how long I wasn’t me,” I confessed. “What if I never do?”
“If you never do, that’s how it is.” His hands slid down my side and he took my left hand in his. “But that doesn’t mean you need to be in the dark.”
He led me to the kitchen, where he opened a drawer full of papers, pens, and tapes. “I know I have one in here.” He dropped my hand. I already missed it. “Ahh, here we are. Mia, our pack teacher and one amazing baker, gives me one every year and I always thank her, telling her how helpful it is. And this year? This year it is.” He pulled out a calendar with a wolf on the cover, my eyes catching the year.
“That’s now?” A lump grew in my throat. Five years it had been since I’d been taken.
“It is. I’m sorry, Prickles. I wish I could get you your time back.” He leaned in and brushed my cheek with his lips. “I think this will help you from losing more.”
Gio flipped the pages and stopped at a picture of a white wolf against a pink moon backdrop. One by one he started to cross out the dates, writing GT in the corner of the first one without a large black X. “Gio and Thorne.” He tapped the initials. “And if there’s a day it’s just Prickles and I, GP. Then you always know.” He pecked my lip and shut the drawer, opening the one beneath it and grabbing a hammer and a small box of nails, marching back into the bedroom and tacking it up right above the nightstand that sat by what I considered my side of the bed.
“There. It doesn’t fix things, but it makes them better.” He set the hammer down just as I tackle hugged him onto the bed, peppering his face with kisses. It was a simple thing. No big deal, really. Not in the grand scheme of things. But at the same time it was huge.
“If I’d known hammering a nail got you this amorous, I’d have hung up a thousand things by now,” he teased, rolling us over so he was on top of me, his hardness pressed against my own. “So, what do you want to do today?”
I arched my hips up. “If only I could think of something.”
“I’m not saying no, trust me I’m not, but I feel you should hear all the offers on the table.” He kissed me far too quickly for my liking and pushed himself up and off of the bed. “So I can think,” he explained.
“Fair enough.” I sat up and ended up standing to give myself room. Jeans and erections were not good friends… although I wasn’t hating the view when the jeans weren’t on me.
“Are you feeling solid?” I didn’t need him to clarify. He was asking if I thought I had control of my skin, and for the moment, I did. I also learned the hard way that that could change in a second, and usually the worst second at that.
“I think so.” I’d never lie to him. “You’re thinking you want to go out.” I didn’t do that. Not really. But I’d met a bunch of the pack, so maybe… “Not near humans.” I couldn’t risk that. Not with my shifting so erratic.
“Not human-less, but all pack.”
Pack I could do. Probably. Maybe.
“Just some… not all. And you’ve met them all except the kids, and they’re all little.” He reached out for my hand and I gave it to him, needing his touch. “We can leave at any time or if you want, we can forget the entire idea. It’s all up to you.”
“I was hoping to get naked,” I gave an overly exaggerated sigh, “but we could do that after.” He understood what I was offering, we’d had that discussion. I even remembered it completely. I offered less than he wanted—his desire to claim me ran deep—but I wasn’t ready… yet.
No, that wasn’t true. I was more than ready. I just couldn’t do that to him, not when I didn’t know if I would be there for him the way he needed or just be a burden in fur.
“I could use a little snack after lunch.” He winked, grabbing his hammer and walking out of our bedroom, my eyes glued to his jean-clad ass.
Our bedroom. It was truly beginning to feel that way. Ours.
If only I could fix the broken connection between my wombat and I. At least that was how I was starting to think of it. But then again, with a dark healer it could be so much worse than that.
“The sooner we leave, the sooner we have dessert,” he called into the room playfully and yanked me from my thoughts, which was for the best. Getting lost in them was one of the only indicators I had that a shift was about to happen. It wasn’t a hundred percent, but common enough I tried to avoid it.
“Coming!” I jogged to the door as he sassed back that I wasn’t, but later I would be.
Thank goodness we
had a ways to walk to the Alpha’s house or I’d have arrived there with a raging hard on. This was going to be challenging enough without adding embarrament to the mix. Everyone had been so kind to me—to Prickles. But it had always been one or two at a time. This was so much bigger than that, and the fear I’d take my fur was front and present.
“Now if you want to leave, just say pears, Prickles.”
“Pears Prickles?” I turned to him in confusion. “What does that even mean?”
“Just say pears and I’ll get you out.” He kissed my cheek, the front porch only a few steps away.
“And if they have pears for lunch?”
“They won’t.” He squeezed my hand.
They did. They had pears. Not only did they have pears to just eat, they also had a pear compote and pears in the chicken salad, one of the omegas having picked up a bushel full from the local farmer’s market. There were pears everywhere. When I saw it and looked to Gio, he must’ve seen the humor in it the way I did, and we both cracked up, the other adults just looking at us wondering what they’d missed and one of the kids joining in with our merriment because that’s how kids are.
I hated that I’d forgotten most of the names. They were just out of reach and I dared not reach for them, enjoying my chicken salad with pear sandwich and crackers with homemade pear compote too much. I was also enjoying sitting with my mate while surrounded by his friends—no one looking at me like the odd man out.
Focusing on my food, not participating too much in the conversations, not really even listening too much was my plan to stay present—to keep my skin. My fear of shifting controlled most of my actions and I hated it. It was far from healthy, but it was the best I could do.
This was important and I didn’t want to be the one to ruin it by ripping through Gio’s clothes and startling young children, food flying everywhere. Because yeah, I pictured it at least a half a dozen times since we’d walked in.
Gio would say it wasn’t me ruining things—it was the dark healer—and in a way, he was right. That didn’t change how I felt. Facts and feelings were odd like that.