by Kati Wilde
No. It was worse than a scare. A scare is jumping when a monster suddenly appears in a horror flick. Your heart races, then you laugh at yourself and the scare goes away.
Makena wasn’t scared. She was fucking terrified. Horrified by what I turned into—and then by what I did.
I can barely fucking breathe, remembering how she whimpered in that corner.
“I never thought I’d need to tell her,” Jonas continues, and I don’t know if he’s telling me or talking to himself, because his gaze is fixed firmly on his plate. “After Halima and Mikael were killed, I thought that was the end of it. They left the organization behind years before that—and when that choice fell on me, I did what they did and decided not to tell her. And I never thought she’d run into your kind, not when there were so few of you.”
Even fewer now. “Where does this organization operate?”
“All over. They hear rumor of something like a werewolf and send people there to hunt it down. It’s been going on for centuries. And it’s how they recruit, too. Halima’s village was all but wiped out by one. She lost her parents, all her family. Then those hunters went in, killed it, and took her back to France with them. Raised her up to be a hunter, too.”
Bringing traumatized kids in, training them. Sounds like a good way to raise fanatics. But Halima had broken away. “So they’re based in France?”
“I couldn’t say.” Jonas sets his fork down and looks me square in the eyes. “When Bjørn first came to me, my first impulse wasn’t to help them run. Instead, I went after the organization, intending to eradicate the threat to my brother and his pregnant wife. But when I got to the location Halima told me about, they’d already cleared out. And word was trickling down that my brother might be of interest to other parties. Between that, and the way Halima and Mikael were so damn afraid of the organization’s new director…that’s when we went.”
“They were afraid of him? It wasn’t just a disagreement in policy?”
Jonas shakes his head. “He kept pushing Mikael for more magical shit. Not just ways of keeping the hunters safe or that was more effective to kill the beasts, but moving into occult magic like immortality and raising the dead.” He sighs. “Now I wish that I’d pushed Mikael a bit more, and asked him about that director. But I never asked for much beyond what I needed to know to keep them safe and help them disappear. And I was more worried about the other hunters than I was worried about any bears. I sure as hell never thought I’d have to be worried about a berserker maybe coming after Makena after all this time.”
I never figured there’d be one of the kin after her, either. But if there is, I’ll damn well do something about it.
“I’ll keep watch over the property during the nights,” I tell him.
He nods. “The hill that comes down across from the bend in the river gives you a good view of both sides. And I’ll stay close to the house.”
With that silver knife, he could probably take down a bear easier than I could. “If it is one of the bearkin, he’ll pick up my scent.” Especially if I go around marking. “That might be enough to keep him away.”
Jonas slides me a doubtful look. “Would that keep you away?”
No, it wouldn’t. But he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t already know the answer, so I don’t waste either of our time. “What about that development company—are they located nearby?”
“They own all that property across the river that isn’t BLM lands. On this side, they’ve got the old Rudder farm. They don’t come out here much, though. Their main construction site is up through the valley. You thinking of taking a look over there, too?”
“Doesn’t hurt to look around and listen a bit. Then I’ll head up the hill here before it gets too late.”
“That’ll do. Is Makena still in the library?”
Because he knows damn well that I’ve been keeping a watch on her, even from here. Keeping a watch and feeling my heart folding in as her anger turns into grief and pain and fear.
“Is the library the room in the front corner of the house?” At his nod, I tell him, “She’s there. And seems bent on drinking that whole bottle.”
He nods and sighs. “She’ll be all right. But while she’s still pissed off and hurt, she’ll avoid the both of us. You’ll probably find a to-do list on the table tomorrow, and it might be a few days before she really talks to us again.”
Maybe she was pissed and hurt because Jonas kept the truth from her. But lying wasn’t all I did. I scared her, too. So I figure that avoidance might last a hell of a lot longer—if she doesn’t toss me off her land right away.
Jonas’s eyes narrow on me. “That scent drawing you to her…is that normal for the ones who aren’t cursed?”
“I don’t know.” I give him the truth. “But I don’t think so.”
“She’ll know. When she talks to us again. She and Mikael were always talking about that book he was supposedly writing. And after he was gone, she went over it all again. She’s probably in there pulling down all those notebooks now. So she might have an answer for you.”
If she talks to me again. Right now, remembering her terror, I’m not holding onto much hope. Maybe with more time…
But time’s in short supply. It might be that I’ll have to leave before she begins to forgive me. And I know now that the fuckers I’m hunting have poisonous silver that’ll stop me from wearing my warrior’s skin, and hurts so bad when it touches me that I can’t think or fight. I’ll be easy to kill if I don’t learn to push my way through whatever that silver does to me.
If I’m easy to kill, I won’t be coming back. But I need to. Because with enough time, Makena might get over her anger and hurt. I’ll never get that time if I’m dead.
So I have to survive. The best way of doing that is with help.
“Jonas,” I say.
The older man looks up from his plate and waits.
This is taking a hell of a risk. And it’ll end up being painful as fuck. But it’s a risk I need to take. “Do you fight with that knife much?”
He regards me with an unreadable expression for a long second. Then he says, “I could use some practice.”
Yeah. Me, too.
* * *
The heavy rock lodged in my gut still hasn’t eased up by the time the birds start twittering and the eastern sky begins lightening. Only two days ago, I did everything I could to avoid Makena and her irresistible scent. Now I can’t bear the thought of staying away from her.
But that’s not up to me. Her uncle said she’d need some time. So I’ll give as much as she needs. I’ll stay out of her hair.
Starting with breakfast. I hear her alarm go off, her answering groan before she silences the strident beeping. Soon she’ll be heading down to take care of the barn animals. Her uncle’s already in the kitchen, banging around pots.
No need to feed me. I caught and ate a rabbit on my way back to the bunkhouse.
When I hear her leave the house and head to the barn, I jump into the shower to wash away the hillside and the splattered bits of my breakfast. With my head under the rushing water and the noise of the shower drowning out everything else, I don’t realize that she didn’t stop at the barn until she starts pounding at the bunkhouse’s front door.
Shit. That rock in my gut sits heavier. I know why she’s here. Last night, I asked her if she wanted me to leave and she snapped back that she didn’t give a fuck what I do. But she was drunk and pissed and afraid.
She’s not drunk any more. That just leaves pissed and afraid. So chances are, she’s here to tell me not to bother coming to work and to get the hell off her ranch.
Knowing that hurts like fuck. But there’s no point in putting this off.
I turn off the shower and wrap a towel around my hips, then drip a trail from the bathroom to the front door. Her footsteps are heading back across the porch when I swing it open.
Abruptly she turns, wearing the same pajama shorts and sweatshirt and tall rubber boots that she was wea
ring when I arrived out of the blue yesterday. But instead of a wary expression, her face is shadowed and her eyes puffy—and I bet she’s got a hell of a hangover. The faint alcohol fumes are still coming off her, mixing with the scent of her coffee, and the fragrance of her usual lotions and oils aren’t so strong. As if maybe she passed out instead of going through her bedtime beauty routine.
Surprise rounds her mouth and her eyes. Her dark gaze widens and drops to my chest, then lower, before flashing upward again. “Oh! I…” She blinks and tears her gaze away, then looks down again, then deliberately focuses in on my face. “I thought maybe you were still up in the hills. Here. This is yours. White and sweet, like you like it.”
She thrusts an insulated mug at me, and for the first time I note she’s carrying two. One for me, one for herself.
This wasn’t what I expected. Bemused, I take the mug. “Is this your polite way of sending me off? ‘Here’s something to keep you awake as you drive away?’”
“What? No. Well, maybe. I guess that depends.” Holding her mug in both hands now, as if to keep them warm, she leans back against the porch rail.
“Depends on what?”
“How much of an asshole I am, I guess.” Before I can make sense of that, she takes a deep breath and says, “I want to see you in your wolf skin.”
Not a thing she could have said would have surprised me more. “You weren’t scared enough by what you saw last night?”
I expect just the memory will kickstart her fear again. Instead embarrassment squirms through her scent and she says, “I should apologize for that.”
“For what?”
“For acting like you’d done something wrong when you…” Now a whiff of fear slips in, her fingers tightening on her mug and her gaze fixing on my mouth, as if she’s recalling razor-sharp teeth. “…changed.”
She’s not making a bit of sense. “Makena,” I remind her, “I popped out claws and fangs and crowded you into a corner.”
“Those claws and teeth came out because my uncle attacked you first,” she says. “So you defended yourself—and then I went after you. Of course you defended yourself against me, too.”
That’s all so fucking mixed up, I almost feel dizzy. Most unbelievable is the thought that I’d ever turn on her, no matter what she did to me.
Shaking my head, I tell her, “I wasn’t defending myself against you—”
“Can you just let me apologize?” she snaps, her gaze suddenly fierce. “I did wrong and I’m trying to make it right.”
From where I’m standing, the only wrong was mine, when I scared her. But I’ll do any damn thing she needs me to.
“Go on, then.”
She nods and some of the fierceness dissolves into uncertainty and hurt, as if whatever she thinks she did wrong is eating her up inside. A few seconds pass while it gnaws on her before she takes another deep breath, as if gathering courage.
“So…last night, I learned that I didn’t know my mother as well as I thought I did. Maybe I didn’t know her at all. Not even her real name.” Her voice thickens and she gazes at the mug in her hands real hard. “But when she was that person I didn’t know, she must have known people like you—the wolfkin—who weren’t cursed. And if what Jonas told us is true, that means she upended her entire existence simply because she believed the wolfkin shouldn’t be hunted or killed, and that you have the same right to live as the rest of us do. I didn’t know that woman, but I knew the one that came after. The one she changed into. And that woman taught me so much.”
Her voice thickens again and her eyes sheen with tears, and it’s all I can do to keep where I am. Because I can see she’s not done.
Swallowing hard, she continues, “One of the things she taught me is that people tend to fear what they don’t understand. And that too many people are willing to write off entire groups of other people, simply because of a few bad ones. She taught me that fear and ignorance do a lot of damage to this world—and said that if people would just take the time to get to know each other, really know each other and see each other for who they are, instead of simply caving to fear…the world would be a lot better place. Unless that person is trying to hurt or kill you—that’s the only time you shouldn’t try to meet them halfway. So are you? Trying to hurt or kill me?”
Nothing could be further from what I want to do. “No,” I tell her hoarsely.
She nods, like that’s exactly what she already thought. “Then I want to see you as you are, so I can move past ignorance and fear. Unless, of course, you don’t feel comfortable showing me,” she adds quickly. “I’d respect your privacy. Because it’s not like I’ve given you reason to trust that I won’t freak out and attack you. So if you don’t want to change in front of me, it’s okay. We’ll just go milk the cow, instead.”
Milk the cow, or turn into a werewolf. And either way, it’s because she wants to be a woman who’s better than the one she was before—or just to make the world a better place.
Her skin darkens on a flush and she averts her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”
I don’t have to ask how I’m looking at her. I am crazy in love this woman. That truth is as stark and as clear as anything I’ve ever known. I don’t care if she sees how I feel.
But I’m terrified that the way she looks at me after I transform will be far different than how I’m looking at her. We all show different faces to different people. With strangers, with friends, with family. We let them get to know us in different ways. And I didn’t lie—when I transform, I’m still all me. But the face I’m about to show her and the part of me she’s about to meet is a hell of a lot different from the one she already knows. And it’s not a face many people would ever want to see.
Yet there’s not a damn thing in the world I wouldn’t do for her, if she asked me to.
“I’m willing to show you,” I say and carefully move closer so I can put the mug down on the porch railing. “But I need to prepare you for what you’re about to see.”
“All right.” She moistens her lips nervously. “So you…turn into a wolf?”
“Not exactly. I’m not a shapeshifter. More like a werewolf.”
Her lips quirk a little. “Like…Teen Wolf?”
I grin. “No.”
“So like something from The Howling? Or American Werewolf in London?”
“Along those lines, yeah.” And there’s a reason those are called horror movies. Most people find them horrifying.
Makena seems to brace herself in anticipation of that. “When you change, are you…more beast-like?”
She’s not talking about my appearance now, but how I’ll behave. “No. I’m just me.”
She seems relieved. “A human in a wolf coat.”
“No.” I can’t let her make that mistake. “I’m never human, Makena. Even looking like I do now.”
“Okay,” she whispers and bites her lip, staring at me, her uncertainty coming to the forefront of her scent. “Does it hurt when you change? Do you want me to look away?”
“It doesn’t hurt.” Until I kissed her, tasted her, the transformation was the best damn thing I ever felt. Like an orgasm wrapped around a long, lazy stretch following a good night’s sleep. Every muscle is stronger, most of my senses sharper. My eyesight’s about the same, but the different shape of my nose and ears mean that I can smell and hear even better than I do now. “But it’s fast—real fast. So it might surprise you. All right?”
She nods, her lips tight and her hands clutching the mug in a death grip.
“I won’t be able to talk,” I warn her and slowly sink into a crouch, so I won’t seem so big when I transform. Because it’s one thing to anticipate an eight-foot-tall werewolf appearing in front of you, and another thing to have it happen. “My mouth isn’t made for that.” It’s made for tearing, ripping. “But I’ll understand you just fine.”
Her entire body is a rigid line. “Okay.”
“Ready, then?”
She nods.
It’s no more effort than smiling, but everything shifts. My gaze remains locked on hers— but even with me crouching low, we’re almost on level now. Her scent fills me up, stronger, richer. She’s sour with fear. Her pounding heart races faster, her breaths sharp and shallow.
Swallowing hard, she says shakily, “You’re…very big.”
I grin.
Her breath sucks in on a high-pitched whistle.
I stop baring my teeth.
Closing her eyes, she takes a few long, steadying breaths. “Okay. I’m okay.”
She will always be with me.
I don’t move as she opens her eyes and studies me again, starting at my feet—which are longer now, with my weight balanced forward on massive paws tipped with deadly claws. “You’re really hairy.”
I chuff a soft laugh.
That makes her smile a little, too, her fear receding. Her gaze skims up over my legs, skips quickly over the towel concealing my cock. The ends of the towel barely meet at my waist now, so I clutch them together at my side, the covering itself about as long as a miniskirt. It probably looks fucking stupid, but looking stupid usually isn’t scary. I should have kept hold of the coffee mug, too—just another modern werewolf enjoying a crisp fall morning. All I need is Instagram, a photo of my coffee, and a #blessed, and Makena would never be afraid of me again.
“Can I see your hand?”
Not the hand holding my towel on. And the other hand is clenched at my side, because not reaching for her is killing me. Slowly I hold it out. She trembles a little as I spread my fingers and give her a good look at my claws.
“Holy shit,” she whispers and moves closer. “You could tear someone in half with those.”
I could. But I’ve never had reason to.
And I’ve never had my control tested like it is now, when she moves within reach and her her scent strengthens. “Can I touch your fur?”
Please. If I could talk, I’d beg her to. But I only need to nod.
She blinks and then smiles, as if that human gesture is a reassuring surprise. If she looked down at the towel, she wouldn’t find what’s happening there so reassuring. I’ve been partially erect since she knocked at the door, even while thinking that she would fire me. Even through her apology. Now I’m fully hard and aching with her nearness.