The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy

by Taylor, Theodora

  But then all of a sudden she heard growling. Not the dogs, but the wolf below. Which maybe wasn’t a surprise since the dogs were getting close to the meal it was smacking its lips for. The surprise came when the whole wood lit up with growls. Growls like those of the wolf below rose out of the dark and into the trees from every direction, including the low hills beyond.

  So many, it sounded like the night was made of them.

  Quick as ever, the barking stopped in the distance, cutting off in a flurry of whimpers.

  “Wolves…” she heard the scattered voices say. “Not safe…better not risk it… only got one gun…gettin’ late anyways…probably drowned in that river…cain’t swim…better death than she deserved no how…come back when it’s light.”

  Then the voices receded, and just like that, her troubles were down to one. One enormous wolf.

  She’d never seen a wolf in all her born days, truth be told. But even in her worst imaginings, she wouldn’t have thought up one this large. Were they all like this? If so, no wonder folks was so scared of them. And if her ears were telling truth, these woods were filled with wolves. She should maybe count herself among the blessed that she’d made it this far without getting ate up by one of them.

  But blessed wasn’t exactly the word she was thinking of right then.

  Her eyes skittered away from the wolf to the sky. It was purple now. “Twilight” as she heard it called. She recognized this sky because it’s the one that usually greeted her when she’d roll out of her cot to eat first meal. Cornbread and salted pork. Her stomach growled at the thought of it.

  And down below the wolf growled at the thought of her.

  While she continued to bleed from two places.

  To make matters worse, she had a strong need to pee now the patrollers had gone off.

  She’d been willing to die only a few hours ago she reminded herself as the wolf growled up at her. But not now. Now she found herself clinging to this pitiful life. Wanting to live, mostly cuz it felt like she never had.

  The North Star was no longer visible in the rising dawn, but she could still hear it singing to her like the memory of a song you might have heard once before you was born.

  Also, the need to relieve herself was becoming urgent.

  Maybe she could piss on the wolf’s head, she thought darkly. It would be so surprised, she could maybe jump out this tree and limp away…right before another wolf attacked her and ate her right up.

  She shivered at the thought and glanced back down at the wolf.

  Only to freeze, her whole body going cold. Not because of the morning dew dampening her smock dress, but because the wolf was no longer down below.

  In its place was…a man? Yes, a man laid where the wolf once stood. Naked as the day he was born. He had long black hair, near down to his butt. Like that of a woman. But she knew he was a man for sure because of the thing between his legs. He wasn’t white, exactly. His skin was darker than that, like burnished copper. Indian? She’d never seen one before. But Jedediah, who had lived longer than most and liked to tell stories, had described one he met who looked just like this.

  The rope she’d tripped over earlier was wrapped around his neck. In all her born days she had never encountered a circumstance like this. Who was he? Then a darker, more disturbing question arose. What was he—?

  All thoughts of who or what he might be fled her mind when he suddenly staggered to his feet. His hands went to the rope, and with a tug, the loop around his neck became wide enough for him to pull over his head and toss to the ground.

  She watched from her perch in the tree, frozen between the need to run and the instinct to stay as still as possible, so as not to be seen by the man…wolf—whatever demon thing he be—below. He did not see her far as she could tell. And there was still a chance he would turn and go away without spotting her in the tree.

  But his head jerked up, and he sniffed the air hard, nostrils flaring same as she’d seen animals do. Then as if the air had spoken directly to him, he looked straight up at her in the magnolia tree.

  Chapter Nine

  Technically, it was all her fault.

  That’s what Halle told herself afterward. When she was looking for someone to blame. When she was still so heartsick that blaming herself felt better than blaming the boy she loved. The boy she thought had loved her…

  It was just like she’d learned in the accounting classes she’d been taking her first year of community college. Wrong numbers, wrong calculations.

  People never truly got how important the numbers were. In finance, but also in life. People died when someone got the numbers wrong. Rocket ships blew up and pension plans imploded. Lives could be ended and destroyed by numbers.

  And her numbers had been wrong from the start. Later when she audited their relationship, when she stopped mooning around and did the math, she could see Nago for what he was: a cruel, rich boy who’d liked having a hick princess as an admirer.

  But she’d been too young to see that. She’d believed every word he told her, up to and including, “you always have a home with me.”

  But that had all come to an end the weekend he visited.

  Even before then, the numbers had stopped adding up. In the year since prom, Nago had been in contact less and less. In contrast to their first year apart when they’d spoken every single day, during the second year it often took him days to return her bios. Once even two months. But Nago had apologized profusely when he finally bio-ed her back and had talked so sweetly about how much he looked forward to seeing her and hearing about her first year at the local human community college, that she’d forgiven him in an instant.

  “Just send me a bio to let me know you’re ok next time,” she’d told him. “I was scared to death.”

  “Sorry, babe,” Nago had murmured over the audio feed. “I just want to see you. I’ll make it up to you when I see you.”

  Never once mentioning the massive changes he’d undergone in the year they’d been apart.

  But she should have known that Nago, the Gummi Bear she’d fallen in love with, was gone as soon as that muscle-bound soldier stepped off the plane.

  As he’d said, most girls would have been thrilled at the transformation, but to Halle, he seemed older than the nineteen-year-old nerd she’d been expecting. Weary, with dark hollows under his eyes. He’d also become ridiculously handsome, which meant he looked exactly like all those perfect specimens from summer camp with a body builder overlay.

  It was bad enough when he’d been wealthier and smarter than her…the old fear of him no longer liking her returned like a boomerang, hitting her in the stomach. Because how could he still want her when he looked like that, and she was the same old Halle with box braids she did herself? So many numbers were not adding up…

  But then he pulled her into his arms and enveloped her in a hug so tight she couldn’t wrap her arms around him in return. And she forgot the numbers. At least until they got to the hotel where they’d be staying the night, before taking a bullet car to Wolf Hills the next day.

  The hotel room was not as nice as the ones on those shows that followed the rich and famous around. But Halle had never stayed in a hotel before this one, so it felt perfect to her. Plus, it overlooked the pool.

  But it wasn’t perfect for Nago. As soon as the door closed behind him, she knew it. He was too big for the small space. And though he wore fatigues, Halle couldn’t shake the feeling that these lodgings were squalid in comparison to the kind of hotels where he usually stayed.

  He doesn’t belong here, she remembered thinking. And it was all she could do not to say the words out loud as she watched him take out his expensive leather duffel and unpack every single item into the dresser drawer.

  She told herself not to think that way. Nago had never said one arrogant word to her. Never once acted like she was less than him because his future kingdom coffers measured in the hundreds of billions, while hers was lucky to end the year with three figures in its
account.

  Also, there was tomorrow’s drive to Mississippi. She’d done what she could to fix up the kingdom house before his visit, but there was only so much painting and cleaning could cover up. If this hotel room wasn’t good enough for him, how could she even think about letting him enter her dilapidated home?

  “You look tired,” she said out loud, grabbing the backpack he’d carried up for her off the bed where he’d dropped it. “I should probably go, let you get some sleep.”

  He flinched at her words as if she’d slapped him. Then he moved to block her before she could head down the short hallway toward the door with her backpack slung over one shoulder. “Look I know I was an asshole earlier.”

  “No, it’s not that. I understand, really…”

  “But do you think I came all this way to spend my first night back on North American soil without you?”

  He crooked his head and chased her eyes until she tentatively answered, “No?”

  “Hell no, I didn’t! I’m just tired, Halle. Exhausted. And I know you’re probably feeling done with me right now, but can you take this nap with me? Just for a little bit?”

  She looked at him, worry and doubt filling her head like a helium balloon. He had eyes like Nago. And he spoke to her as Nago used to, but…

  But nothing, she decided, pushing the unsettled feeling away as she said, “I’m kind of tired, too. I mean not twenty-hour-flight-after-a-year-out-of-the-country tired…”

  He groaned. “Don’t listen to me, babe. I’m an asshole when I get tired. Stay with me. You’ll see I didn’t mean it when I wake up.”

  It was so easy to let herself believe. And Nago did look tired as all get out…

  She unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor before quickly changing into the old t-shirt she’d brought along as pajamas. They’d never slept together in a proper bed, she realized as she quickly dived under the covers. It had been against the rules at summer camp, and on prom night, he’d had to leave right after dropping her off at the Mississippi kingdom house to make his 5:00 A.M. flight check-in.

  Sleeping together would be different but nice, she assured herself as she watched Nago strip down to his briefs on the other side of the bed.

  Even if he looked like an underwear model. Though something was going on with the front of his briefs, she noted with a frown. They poked out, rather than staying fitted against Nago’s contours like they were supposed to—

  Comprehension flooded Halle with the suddenness of a flipped switch, suffusing her face with heat as she realized exactly why his underwear hung so funny.

  He followed her gaze down the front of his body. “Oh, hell. Don’t pay any attention to that, Halle. Trust me; I’m way too tired to do anything anyway.” He shook his head, like the thing between his legs was a foreign object that had nothing to do with her tired boyfriend.

  And Nago climbed into the bed fast, as if trying to cover it up and get it out of her line of sight, before leaning over to turn off the light and settle against his pillow with a heavy sigh.

  He really was tired, she noted. She could practically feel the exhaustion pouring off him as his eyelids dropped shut.

  But that thing underneath his briefs? It pulsed between them. Sending its own kind of signal. Making it difficult for her to relax enough to fall asleep.

  They still hadn’t done it. Or even so much as talked about doing it. What had he said when their post-prom make-out session on the front steps of her kingdom house got too heavy? “No, not yet, babe. You’re not legal, and I want our first time to be in a real bed.”

  Well, they were in a real bed now…and with more curiosity than intent, her hand snaked down between their bodies and pushed past the waistband of his briefs.

  At first, he didn’t say anything, just went completely still. He’s waiting, she realized after a breathless moment of resting her palm on the rigid piece of flesh she found inside. Waiting to see what she would do next.

  She stilled, too. Taking a moment for her lungs to catch up with her reality. And then she made the tentative decision to lift Nago’s rod from where it lay flat against his stomach, and she began stroking her hand up and down it.

  Nago stayed quiet, but she could feel his eyes on her in the room’s dim light. Watching her closely as she carefully worked him down below.

  At first, it felt to Halle as if he was indulging her. Letting her explore his body even though he was tired because he was a nice guy. But then he suddenly inhaled on a hiss, as if he’d been holding himself back and couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Halle,” he whispered her name like a ragged prayer.

  And then things began to feel very different. Like by stroking faster, she was giving him something he needed.

  Now it was her turn to watch him. He bit down on his lip, and his eyes fell closed as she moved her hand up and down. “Halle,” he whispered again.

  She would have kept pumping her hand just to hear him say her name a few more times, but he pulled her to him, one heavy thigh bumping against hers as he kissed her long and hard. Not like the sweet boy she’d met at summer camp two years ago, but like a man who wanted to do things to her. With her.

  Then he caught her wrist down below and took over, using her hand to slowly stroke himself, while he kissed her.

  “It’s me. It’s me. I’m okay,” he whispered against her lips. “I’m okay—”

  He cut off sharply, and in the next moment the thick length he’d been pumping with her hand pulsed. Pulsed so hard, Halle could feel the surge right before he spilled, warm and viscous over their joined hands.

  Silence, charged and heated, dropped down between them in the aftermath. And she waited. To see what he would do…if he’d take things further now that she was eighteen and legal according to both wolf and human laws.

  Halle was both ready and not ready. Scared, and yet her body was on fire with curiosity.

  “You okay?” he asked her softly.

  And for a moment, just a moment, it felt like the old Nago was with her in the dim room.

  She nodded. “That was cool,” she whispered.

  He rumbled. “Couldn’t have been better for me.”

  “Really?”

  And he answered her with a kiss, pressing his lips to hers as he gently disengaged her hand from around his unit. Pulling her close to push her away.

  She’d think about that kiss for a long time afterward. Because it ended up being their last.

  Soon after, he exited the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. And she started feeling bad the moment the door closed behind him.

  The fever of curiosity took on a new tint, and suddenly her wolf reared up inside her. Needy and desperate to have him back in the room.

  As if answering her mental call, Nago returned from the bathroom with a washcloth. He took the hand she’d used to jerk him off and cleaned it, handling it as if it were made of dark brown porcelain.

  “You okay?” he asked again as he slipped the towel between her fingers.

  She wanted to say she felt fine, but the truth was, “I don’t feel so good. I feel…weird. Like I have a fever, but my heart is racing. I don’t know…I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He frowned, a worried look passing over his face.

  But her ignorance of what was happening with her body only lasted for a few more seconds—then the smell released.

  Sharp and piercing, it was the equivalent of an olfactory tornado siren going off between her thighs. And suddenly she could feel something making her slick below.

  Arousal. The word came to her in an instant. Followed by the minimal factoids she’d learned about she-wolves going into heat during that one summer at camp. That it came on suddenly. That it rendered a she-wolf Godless, willing to open her legs for anyone and anything. That it would fill her with such need, she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else until she was mounted. Not just mounted. But pregnant. The tingling arousal wouldn’t stop until then.

  “You’re
not on heat control?” Nago asked, his voice guttural. He still held her hand in his, but his grip had changed. No longer tender, but squeezing tighter than a vice.

  “It’s illegal in Mississippi,” she answered on an outward gasp. “I thought you knew!”

  Oh Lord, she had never experienced anything like this. She could feel her sex clenching in and out, desperately searching, and the urge to touch herself with her free hand came on more like a biological imperative than an inclination.

  “Oh, God!” she gasped, rubbing at her sex. It was slippery with arousal. “Oh, God!”

  “Halle, stop. Stop!” she heard Nago bite out, his voice so coarse it was nearly unintelligible. “You’ve got to stop.”

  Yes, she did. This wasn’t how a southern lady behaved. Her mother had warned her that she needed to not act like a hillbilly when she went to camp. She had to be genteel and gracious. Like she had both good sense and manners. And Halle had tried to hold on to that in the years since her mother left. Even when she was doing handy work around town, dressed in overalls, she maintained the manners she’d been brought up with.

  But this need didn’t allow for dignity or even the most basic of manners. She rubbed the itch, trying to make it stop. But that only made it worse. The more she rubbed, the more her body throbbed, her wolf screaming with need. “Nago! Nago!” it sobbed.

  Or maybe that was her. She couldn’t tell anymore. But somebody was begging out loud. “Oh, God, Nago. Please, please!”

  No answer. And for a second she thought he might deny her, say no…

  But in the next moment, he was upon her, flipping her onto her stomach as if she weighed nothing. Large hands with callused palms and long fingers viced down on her hips, and then…

  She screamed out in a near agony of relief when he filled her up from behind. It hurt a little, but only a little. Like a tiny bee sting in a swarm of pleasure.