by Willa Hart
“Sharalla, I just did what I was told,” I say calmly. “I put down the stick.” I glance from an angry Sharalla to the rest of the pack, all of them inching forward and growling. “Oh no, Sharalla, why are you still looking at me as though I am meant to be a midnight meal?”
Taraz, get on Sharalla’s back, Meela thinks.
Easy for you to say! I think. She’s growling and baring her teeth. I tried—
You cannot pet a Wolveskin, Meela thinks. It’s like flipping off a human. They aren’t dogs…it’s considered offensive.
How would I know that!? I think. “Sharalla, I’m sorry!” I yell. “I didn’t know!” I hold up both my hands in the universal I didn’t know signal, pretty certain that will be the last thing I do before I meet the Goddess. The cold stone of the boulder behind me presses into my back. Yep, I’m done; the wolves are so close that if I reach out I could touch their teeth. I close my eyes ready to be ripped apart.
The snarling stops.
Get on her back, Meela thinks.
I open my eyes and peer through my fingers. Sharalla stands with her side to me. She looks at me as though to say, come on human we have places to go.
That’s exactly what she’s thinking, Meela thinks.
I glance at the other four wolves that stand by Sharalla’s side.
“Okay, Sharalla,” I say, slowly inching toward the wolf. “I’m doing this.” I reach out and grasp the fur on the back of her neck with my one good hand and swing my leg over her broad back. She’s a giant, so different than a horse, with thicker muscles running across her broad back. I lean forward and grasp her fur tight.
She looks back at me. Her eyes black as night, with the silver circle of the Wolveskin around her pupil.
“I can’t believe you are real,” I say. I’m a scientist—one that’s just made a new discovery. I smile. “This is unbelievable. You know, Sharalla, humans think Wolveskin are myths. I was raised to believe them fairytales told to children to keep them from wandering off into the Dark Forest.” I shake my head. “My Goddess, Sharalla, you and your kind are real!” I glance at the other wolves, two on each side of us. All of them look at me, and I swear there is a look of complete and utter annoyance over my words and my truly deep and incredible joy and surprise.
“Look at me all you wish,” I say. “I’m excited about this discovery.” Before I can utter another word, Sharalla takes off, and hyperbole be damned, I feel like I’m riding the wind.
Chapter Three
Meela
Memories of the Dark Forest stir within me as I ride through the night on the Wolveskin’s back. Are my memories real? Have I been here before? The pack barks at the moon around me as they run. Wind whips through my hair and I lean even closer to Rex’s back. His fur and his flesh warm me. His powerful muscles ripple beneath me as he lunges into the night.
To be this strong…what must Rex the Wolveskin look like as a man? Perhaps even bigger than my Sarkany?
Not bigger, but definitely smarter, Rex says in my mind.
I set my mouth into a firm line.
Ah, the Princess doesn’t like me to disparage her lover, Rex thinks. Again the dark silken laugh of the black Wolveskin enters my mind.
He is more than my lover, I think. He is my fated-mate.
The snow flies around me. Razor Mountain rises before us.
Ah yes, the Roya and their fated-mates. I’ve heard how the Roya line requires a Queen to have at least three kings. Does it take that many human males to satisfy a single human woman?
My face flushes with Rex’s thoughts; it’s not just his thoughts but the smooth and rough and sexual tone in my mind. As though his rough and sexy voice whispers in my ear. Along with his question about satisfaction, there is something about this Wolveskin I’m riding that causes my body to respond in a way not unlike how I responded to Sarkany. Perhaps his very wildness? The fact that he is a man with a beast within?
We climb the base of Razor Mountain and circle across many paths. The pack darts through a stream, and Rex leaps over a rock. He is point with a Wolveskin flanking him on either side. I catch the eye of the sentinel on my left. Her eyes lock with mine for an instant, but I do not hear her thoughts like I can hear Rex’s.
How are you able to communicate with me?
That’s a long answer to a very short question, Rex thinks. He leaps in the air, and I clasp tighter to his fur. My body jolts as he lands, and before me appears the cliff that will take us over the edge of Razor Mountain and into the abyss below.
My heart jolts and I scream. I grasp even tighter to Rex’s fur and close my eyes.
We’re home, Princess, Rex thinks.
I slowly open my eyes. I am deep inside a cave, this entry room extending at least a hundred feet into the air. Fires are built in hearths and arches with ornate stonework decorate the grand room. Steel lanterns adorn the walls of the cave. The beauty and warmth of this place overwhelms me. Finally, after being attacked, wandering the forest, and being surrounded by Wolveskin, I feel…safe.
“This…this is home?”
In the room, wolf pups frolic; playing and teasing and yelping. Humans and wolves scurry about fixing meals and tending to the pack.
I turn to Rex, still a Wolveskin. I start to speak, but my words are taken from me as he shifts before my eyes. His lupine nose falls back into his face, his eyes transition from the side of his snout to above his nose, fingers emerge from his paws, and his back legs shift to thighs.
In an instant, he is human.
Human. Male. And Naked. Very, very naked.
Heat flushes through me. I keep my eyes fixed on his face, but can’t help but notice his body…his perfectly sculpted body with skin the color of night. His dark brown eyes with the silver line of the Wolveskin around his pupils. His broad chest and muscles, thick and corded, snake beneath his dark skin.
I swallow. I halt the urge to reach out and stroke my fingertips across his chest.
My King. The thought flashes through my mind before I can stop it. And for the first time, I hear Rex’s human out-loud laugh. His head tips way back and he does exactly what he’s been doing in my mind for hours—he laughs. A loud, silken laugh that could wake the Goddess with its joy and sexuality.
“Perhaps ‘Alpha’ is the better choice of words,” he says.
He’s not embarrassed or afraid of his nakedness. In fact, I feel within him a comfort of being in his body and his human skin. A comfort that I’ve never experienced for myself or sensed in any other human.
“No,” he says, “we are very comfortable because we shift in and out of both forms. Sometimes we have clothes and sometimes we don’t. If I’m comfortable being naked in my wolf pelt, why wouldn’t I have the same comfort in my human skin as well?”
Two women, both in human form and clothed, walk to Rex. He holds out his arms and they put a robe on his body. Not only do they clothe him, but they tie the robe as well.
“That’s service,” I say.
“I am the Alpha, it’s their duty,” Rex says out loud.
Hmm…what other duties do they have?
Rex’s wicked smile plays across his mouth. Princess? Really? he thinks. Asking me about my sex life when you’ve seen me naked, but I’ve yet to see your flesh?
Heat floods my face and I’m quite sure even in the dim light of the cave, Rex knows of my embarrassment. “Those were my private thoughts,” I say.
He tilts his head and that wicked smile fills his face. “I’m not sure you have any private thoughts anymore, Princess.”
“That idea is horrifying,” I say.
“I’m not sure how any of this works,” Rex continues. “I’ve never before been mind-linked to a human.” He takes two steps forward. “Nor this attracted to one either. It is”—he takes a deep breath as though catching my scent—“a compulsion.”
My body quivers with desire. His lips are so close to my cheek, the heat of his breath whispers over my skin. “I smell your desire,” he whispers.
“Never underestimate the olfactory senses of a wolf. There’s not much you can ever hide from me.”
I lick my lips. Take a deep breath. My nipples harden.
Rex steps back and nods to two Wolveskin in the shadows. They come to me just as a wave of nausea and dizziness overwhelms me. As though Rex knew. Each woman grasps an arm.
“Meela,” Rex says suddenly all business. “We must tend to this wound. There is something very bad in that gash.”
The salveskin lick that the Wolveskin used to relieve my pain and seal the gash is wearing off. The pain rushes into my mind, and a cramp rushes through my stomach. I bend, doubled over with discomfort. I feel as though I’ve been punched in the gut.
“Take her to the infirmary,” Rex says. “Have Doctor Atta meet us.”
The world spins; I feel very little other than the throbbing in my leg and the cramping in my stomach.
“Hurry, I fear we have even less time than I thought. The scent of her flesh is necrotic. We must stop the infection before it reaches her heart.”
Meela! A voice-shout enters my mind, but I don’t know if it really is in my mind or through my ears. I fall softly and quietly as my eyes close. The sound of puppies, yipping and yapping, oh so sweet to my ears. The darkness pulls me into a deep place, sounds are fading, and I’m falling, falling, falling…
Meela! I grasp for the sound of the voice, trying to know who calls to me. Again, the voice and the entire world fades to black.
Chapter Four
Taraz
Sharalla moves fast through the woods. A sense of falling…falling…deeper and deeper into darkness comes to me.
Meela? I reach out to her mind and there is only…nothingness.
My heart pounds in my chest. As a scientist, I know a number of reasons that a mind link could fade to darkness and nothingness, and the majority of those reasons aren’t good…if there is even one.
What has happened to Meela?
I resist the urge to dig my heels into Sharalla’s sides. If it’s offensive to try and pet a Wolveskin, then I doubt it’s a good idea to kick them to make them run faster. In fact, I’d hypothesize that very few humans have ever ridden a Wolveskin. First, for as long as Roya history books have been written, the Wolveskin have been deemed a myth; and second, because I can tell they are proud creatures that really think humans are idiots.
Sharalla jumps over a ravine and I press even closer to her back. We are at the edge of a cliff on Razor Mountain. Just when I am certain she is going over the edge, instead she leaps down onto a hidden cavern lip, stops, and turns into a cave.
Goddess! My eyes glance around the giant cavern that reaches up higher than any Roya Temple ever designed for the Goddess. The structural engineering of this place is magnificent.
Sharalla stops, but before I can get off her back, she shakes her body and dumps me to the floor.
Then she shifts.
In front of me.
She shifts so fast that my mind can hardly fathom what happened; I can’t quite grasp what I’m seeing because it is so incredibly unreal to watch a wolf, the size of a horse, shift into a woman, the size of…a woman.
“Goddess!” I need her to do that again. I need to take notes, I need to— “Oh my! You’re naked,” I say, my eyes nearly popping out of my head. I drop my gaze to the cave floor, respectful; I must be respectful of this woman’s, I mean wolf’s, I mean Wolveskin’s…privacy. I turn away, but behind me stands a naked man and beside him a naked woman and another naked man. Much like when I stood in the Dark Woods with just a branch and a rock pressed against my back, I am now confronted with six naked humans circling me.
“Relax human,” Sharalla says, and laughs at my obvious discomfort. “We’re used to being naked. We’re naked in our wolf-pelts, so to us it’s the same whether we’re wolf or human. Although with human flesh being so vulnerable and soft, there are many benefits to clothing.”
“I see.” I close my eyes, then open them again being very certain that I’m looking Sharalla in the eyes. She reaches for a robe hanging on a hook on the wall and slides the silken robe onto her body. The soft fabric glides over her skin, and I watch as the other five Wolveskin do the same.
“Better?” she asks.
I smile and nod. Heat flushes my cheeks. “Much,” I say.
She flips her long red hair free from the collar of the robe. “How was your first ride?” she asks and smiles. She slides her gaze toward her five packmates as though there is some joke that I am unaware of. Which would not be unusual as humor often escapes my logical mind.
The Wolveskin stand around me. They’re tall and lean, the men thick with muscle and the women, while in different shapes and sizes, all athletic-looking. I lean forward and squint—yes, the silver is still present in their eyes. “So very interesting,” I say.
Sharalla lifts her eyebrows and shakes her head. “I’m not a specimen to be examined,” she says, and slides past me.
“Of course.” So lost in my thoughts and in my mind, I’ve been rude. “I’m sorry and I…uh…thank you.”
Sharalla stops and turns back. She eyes me up and down as though giving me a second chance to prove to her that I’m not a complete and utter ass. “For what?”
“You know, for saving me and letting me…” Again the heat in my cheeks. “Ride your back.”
Her lips curve into a smile. Her eyes dance, as though she’s thinking of a million and one things that she could say in response.
“And of course, for not eating me,” I add.
The smile drops from her face, replaced by an irritated look. She sighs; it would appear I’ve been relegated back to asshole.
“I don’t eat human, Professor.” She shakes her head. “You’re not tasty enough and you’re way too tough.”
“Which would imply”—I glance at the eyes of the five packmates standing by her side—“that you have, in fact, tasted a human?”
Sharalla licks her lips and wiggles her eyebrows. Her packmates all start laughing at my distress. I am unsure of what to make of her response; I don’t know if she is serious or joking.
I press my lips together. “Yes, well, I was wondering if we might do something about my arm,” I say.
Sharalla stops laughing, and an intense look spreads across her face.
“Your…arm?” Her gaze drops to the arm that is pressed to my side and has, now that the adrenaline of the situation has passed, started to throb.
“Yes,” I say, “I believe that it may be broken.”
“Broken? Your arm is broken? And you rode my back…through the night?”
“Well, the adrenaline helped, but I don’t want the bone to set and then we would have to re-break the arm. Do you have a doctor or a nurse or some sort of medical personnel that might help—” The pain rushes up into my mind and I press my lips together. I take a deep breath and will the pain away.
“Get Doctor Atta,” she says. Sharalla is now by my side with two of her packmates; the two men start to lift me.
“Thank you, but I can walk,” I say and wave them off. They all look quite horrified and spy my arm as though they are looking at something terrible. Sympathy is in Sharalla’s eyes. “It’s just an arm, it will heal. I hope.”
“Follow me, Professor,” Sharalla says. “Let’s get that paw tended to.”
Then it hits me: while my arm is important to me, my arm is the equivalent of a wolf’s leg, and if I were a Wolveskin and my leg was permanently wounded, it could mean the death to me and harm to the pack.
“Humans aren’t usually so stoic when they’re injured,” Sharalla says. I can hear a tone of esteem in her voice.
I stand a little straighter and walk a little taller. Not sure why I take this as a compliment, or why I need one from Sharalla; perhaps it is the little boy in me who always seemed unable to hold a sword like Sarkany and pretend the blows didn’t hurt, or memorize legal document like Leo and not only recite them, but stand in front of our professors and tutors and argue
why the treatises, the constitution, the laws, or whatever else we were meant to learn should be changed or amended.
No. None of that was me. Instead of any of that, I’d much preferred being left alone to play with numbers and gadgets. So to be complimented on something physical? Goddess, so funny how we want to be good at the things we sometimes think we fail at and believe that others succeed.
We walk down tile-floored hallways. The walls are cave-like, and yet the entire place is not like a dungeon under the Palace as you might expect. It is well lit and warm. Paintings and ornate tapestries decorate the walls.
“Here,” Sharalla says. She stops in front of a room and presses a pad just beside the door.
“What is that?”
“That is a paw, or as you would say, hand detector. It allows us to know where our packmates are. We press it when we enter a room, and that way if any one of us is looking for another, we can find them.”
I lean forward and stare at the device built into the wall.
“So interesting,” I say. “We don’t have that technology…or I don’t think we have it. Maybe we do and are just using it in a different way. You know what’s really quite interesting about scientific insight is that often it’s the use of the technology that has yet to be discovered, while the tech has always been there but—”
I glance at Sharalla. She stands beside me with an amused but bored look on her face. “Come on, Professor, let’s get that paw fixed. You can tell me, or maybe someone else who cares, all about the similarities and differences of Roya and Wolveskin technology, but my assignment is to get you back to the lair in one piece and keep you in one piece for as long as you’re here.”
“I see.”
“So, now on to the leg—or as you humans call it, an arm. Let’s get that sorted, shall we?”
“Yes, let’s do. And Meela, I need to see Meela.”
A serious look crosses Sharalla’s face. She pauses as though listening to an unseen voice.