by Kati Wilde
Because I told Ethan that we did the opposite of what we’d both intended. I stayed home and he started drifting. But the truth is…I’ve been drifting, too. Not going anywhere, physically. But letting life carry me along, as if I’m a stick floating on the river, and never fighting too hard against the current.
I’m exactly where I want to be. That’s true. But my life’s not all that I want it to be. And I pushed Ethan away after his kiss brought me face-to-face with what I’ve been missing.
And I pushed him away because I wouldn’t have it forever.
But maybe nothing is forever. I look at my parents’ smiling faces, and I can imagine my mother’s voice so clearly. Because if I asked my mama whether she’d have pushed my father away when she met him, if she’d have sacrificed all these happy moments, because she knew it would end with screaming and pain…she’d have called me as stupid as a brick.
Also stupid, though? Sticking your arm into a thresher. You just end up with a mangled limb and covered in blood. Is it really much different if you knowingly throw your heart into a thresher, instead? Because I’ve got a feeling that when Ethan leaves, it’ll chew mine up pretty good.
So I don’t know the answer. But I do know my mama would tell me that no one else can make this decision, except for me.
And I still don’t know what that decision will be. But standing here wallowing in uncertainty and fear isn’t going to help, either.
With a sigh, I put away the photograph and head outside, carrying the quilt. Ethan’s waiting for me, but not in the swing. Instead he’s standing stock still at the porch rail, with his head tilted slightly. Not really looking at anything but more like…he’s listening.
“Do you hear something?”
“Engine,” he says softly. “Up past Rudder’s property. But heading this direction.”
I frown. There’s nothing up that way except a tangle of back roads that are nothing more than bare tracks of dirt. Every once in a while people will head out that way, but I haven’t seen anyone drive past the ranch all day. But they might have gone up into the hills somewhere else, driven through the maze of roads, and this is just where they’re coming out. That happens quite a bit more often when—
Oh shit. I laugh, shake my head. “I know what that is.”
He glances back at me, eyebrow arching. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I take my place on the swing again, spread the quilt over my legs. “Deer season starts tomorrow. Either they’re looking for a place to camp out, or they’re hoping to get a little jump start on everyone else. Because by dawn, you’re going to be hearing a whole lot of engines up in those hills. Lot of gunfire, too.”
Relaxing out of that utterly still listening stance, he pushes away from the rail, heading back this way. “That’s why I prefer claws. They’re a hell of a lot quieter.”
“Except if whatever you’re tearing apart is screaming.”
“Any hunter who can’t make a quick kill shouldn’t be hunting at all.” The swing jolts and creaks under his weight as he sits, then he falls quiet, his gaze searching my face. “You’re all right?”
Because I ran out of here after nearly freaking out on him. “Yeah.”
“We don’t have to talk about that anymore.”
The mine. Since the mere thought of it tightens up my chest again, he’s probably right. But I shake my head. “Maybe not about it specifically. But I think it’s important. At least the silver is. So is knowing where it’s from. Because my dad, he wanted to know why the silver was different. And if you know that…”
“Maybe I can figure out why it affects me. And stop it.”
“Yeah. So.” I really wish my cider had more than a splash now, but I take a long drink, letting the warmth settle in. “In his notebooks, he has a couple of theories about what affected the silver. But his favorite was that this silver mine is where Gleipnir was buried.”
“Who the hell is Gleipnir?”
“A what, actually. A gossamer ribbon that was used to bind Fenrir, the wolf god.” Laughing at the look he gives me, I add, “Okay, so—my dad focused on how the silver basically binds the beast.”
“Feels more like it damn near rips that part of me right out.”
“Which might be the same thing for you. It doesn’t let you transform—or unleash that beast warrior, essentially. Because you’re bound. And there are a bunch of legends and stories where that happens, and objects that go along with it. Like the collar that subdues Surma at the gates of Tuonela, or the lasso that bound Ahriman so he could be ridden—oh, and that’s a fun story. Ahriman eats the king who enslaved him, and then the king’s brother drags his corpse out of Ahriman’s anus while they’re having sex. So Gleipnir was a—”
“Hold up. You’re just going to throw anuses and corpses into the conversation and move on like it’s nothing?”
“Yep.”
“Fair enough. So this ribbon is one of those legendary artifacts?”
“Right. The story goes that the Norse gods used it to bind Fenrir, then they tied the other end to a giant rock and buried it as deep as they could.”
“In Idaho,” he says flatly.
Laughing at that deadpan observation, I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe they buried it so deep that it just about came out the other side of the world.”
“Just like the king that got eaten, until his brother pulled him out the other end.”
“Exactly like that,” I tell him. “Because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that Fortune City is the asshole of the world.”
Ethan closes his eyes and bows his head, and the swing starts wobbling with the force of his silent laughter.
Watching him, all that longing winds me up tight again. I’ve never been so at ease with anyone. Although…I’m not completely at ease, but prickly and deliciously aware of all that solid strength and those rough edges.
It really is going to kill me when he goes. From the beginning, I knew that was a danger. And I wish there was some magic ring to protect me, too. But there’s not.
Ethan finally lifts his head, wipes his eyes. “So, you think that’s what it is? Some ribbon than can bind a wolf, and its magic is bleeding out into the rock where it’s anchored?”
“No clue,” I tell him honestly. “Though I’m pretty sure that’s the angle my dad was leaning toward. I even remember talking about it with him, kind of. Not saying that Gleipnir was buried in our silver mine. But I started thinking about that story last week when I told you about the gold chain that connects a cursed werewolf to the person who can tame the beast’s heart. That’s supposedly really long and unbreakable, too. Though also totally different. It doesn’t subdue the beast.”
“That’s what you and your dad talked about—how to subdue a werewolf?”
I shake my head. “No, we were actually debating magic versus science. Because the way that story goes, the gods believed Fenrir would be dangerous, so they kept trying to trick him into being bound in these huge chains—they’d pretend that they just wanted to see how strong he was, so that he’d consent to being chained up, then they promised to free him if the chains were too strong—which they never really intended to do, of course. Anyway, he kept breaking them. So then the gods asked the dwarves to make a new chain, and they forged Gleipnir, which was a thin gossamer ribbon that they claimed would be impossible to break because it was made from impossible things.”
“Like what things?”
“Oh shit. Let me think.” It’s been a while since I’ve read this part. “I think it was the sound of a cat’s steps, the root of a mountain, the breath of a fish, the nerves of a bear…and a few more, but I’d have to look them up. Anyway, I argued that those things might have seemed impossible then, but we know they aren’t now. I mean, maybe we can’t hear a cat walking around—”
Ethan flashes a wolfish grin. “I can.”
Braggart. I playfully shove at his shoulder and keep going. “So can modern audio equipment. And we know the roots o
f a mountain can be lava. And that fish have lungs and they get their oxygen in the water.”
“So the old ‘magic is just science that we don’t understand yet’ bit.”
“Yes! Exactly. So I told my dad that Gleipner would be breakable now, because those things weren’t impossible now.”
Ethan nods as if he’s agreeing, then says, “I don’t think that’s right.”
“No?” I can’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Not regarding that ribbon. I don’t know anything about it, so you might be right there. I’m talking about magic just being science that’s misunderstood. Maybe it’s true of some things…but I think most magic is just magic. And has a magical explanation, not a scientific explanation.”
“Really?”
He nods again. “My DNA, for instance. If you sent it into a lab for testing, the results would come back one-hundred-percent human.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You sound as if you already know that for sure.”
“I do. Because it’s something that my dad did. He took samples from all of us when we were wearing our different skins, and sent them in to a friend at the crime lab. And there wasn’t anything remarkable about them. No genetic anomalies, nothing.”
“That’s…actually kind of surprising.”
“We weren’t really expecting that, to be truthful. We figured the results would come back saying they were contaminated with wolf DNA or something. But they weren’t.”
“Okay, but—”
“Now you’re going to say that maybe the lab tech didn’t know the right thing to look for yet. Because the science hasn’t evolved that far.”
I hate that he’s right, because that’s exactly what I was going to say. But I love that he’s obviously thought about this. “Well…yeah.”
“And that’s a good argument for you, because as long as science lags behind magic, you can keep saying it.” His eyes gleam, as if he’s enjoying this little debate, too. “But me, I start looking at the other evidence. Such as how the curse is spread by biting. I bet you think it’s kind of like a virus.”
Damn it. Right again. But at least this time he didn’t get it all right. “Or it could be a fungus.”
He snorts out a laugh. “You think I’m infected with a fungus?”
“Like a zombie ant,” I say with a grin. “Because it changes the ant’s behavior so the fungus can reproduce. And the curse kind of does the same thing: on the full moon, it turns people into monsters who go around attacking and biting other people, spreading the curse…like a virus.”
“And you told me yourself that the cure for the behavioral change is love,” he points out in a low voice. “What is that, if not magic?”
I have no idea. But I’m pretty good at pulling answers out of my ass. “Well, since some of you are born instead of bitten, sexual reproduction is also a way of spreading it. So maybe love releases endorphins or some other hormone that tells your fungus to settle down and protect their mate and offspring.”
He started laughing somewhere around ‘endorphins.’ “Love sure as hell ain’t necessary to sexually reproduce.”
“I didn’t say the fungus was smart.”
“Maybe it’s a real romantic fungus. The kind that enjoys drinking red wine at fancy restaurants and hunting virgins under the moonlight,” he suggests and then waits until my giggles subside before adding, “And what about transmission, then? I bite you, I curse you. So it’s in my saliva? But I kissed you pretty good the other day and you aren’t changing.”
Better than pretty good. And simply being with him has left me hot and aware, and this fun debate adding a dimension of challenge that is sexy and thrilling. But simply mentioning that kiss sends the memory of it washing over me again, as if those sensations had simply been bottled up within me since then, waiting to be released.
Ethan has infected me with something in that kiss. And the debate suddenly takes on another dimension. No longer just fun conversation, but charged with more.
But this time I don’t have to make up an answer. It’s clear. “Obviously it’s because the saliva has to get into the bloodstream. That’s why the bite.”
“You think? So I probably ought to make sure you haven’t bitten your tongue the next time I kiss you.” He’s leaning closer, those amber eyes hypnotic.
“You probably should,” I agree breathlessly.
“Or we can perform a scientific experiment right here.” A shiver wracks my body as he gently grips my fingers and brings my hand to his mouth, and presses his lips to the side of my wrist. “Because I smelled this bit of blood earlier. What’d you do here?”
The way my heartbeat’s thundering in my ears, it takes a second to process his question. Then I realize he’s referring to the small cut on my wrist bone—just one of the myriad injuries that any rancher suffers to their hands. Most of them, I don’t even notice. “I whacked it while setting up the cider press.”
And he licks that cut. One long, hot swipe of his tongue.
My heart catches in my throat.
“Now,” he says gruffly, “maybe you’re worried that’ll curse you.”
At this moment, that’s the furthest thing from my mind. But it’s true that lick did something to me. My blood feels heavy and slow, thick and hot in my veins.
“I’m damn sure that it won’t, Makena. It takes a bite—a deliberate bite—and I wouldn’t ever risk cursing anyone. But especially you.”
“Why especially me?”
“Because I’d be terrified that I’d never get that gold chain.”
The chain that connects a cursed werewolf to the person who owns their heart. But he doesn’t need to bite me to get that. Already there’s something here, strong and unbreakable.
And I longed for something exactly like that…but not like this. Not with him. Because he’s still going to leave. And although he wants to come back, god knows if he really will.
I didn’t want to lose my heart to Ethan Grimmson. But I am losing it anyway. And I didn’t want to risk losing someone else that I care about.
But the grief and pain of losing someone isn’t just losing the person; it’s losing all the time I could have had with them. And since I can’t protect my heart, the choice I have is to either waste the short time that I’ll have with Ethan…or make the most of it.
Strange that the scariest part of being with a werewolf in the dark is this small movement. The swing wobbles as unsteadily as my nerves as I rise up onto my knees. The quilt slides down to puddle on the seat, and I straddle his lap with my gaze even with his.
He’s utterly still, his muscles like steel—and his cock rock hard beneath me. “You firing me, then?”
I have made a decision—a choice that feels like an enormous leap within me. But perhaps that choice is as brave as I get tonight, because saying it aloud takes more courage than I have right now.
So instead I tell him, “Maybe I’m just…writing you up.”
“For bad behavior?” The gleam in his eyes tells me how much he enjoys that thought.
And I like it, too, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Because he’s been so very good. Giving me time. Working so hard. I’d be a fool to fire him.
I’d be a fool to keep wasting all this time, when I could be kissing him.
Yet I’m still wasting it.
He reads my hesitation just as well as he reads everything else that I do. “Since we aren’t really talking about my employment, does that mean a write-up is just another way of saying you’d like to take this one step at a time?”
Mutely I nod, because he found the words I couldn’t. One step at a time. Even though we’ve already taken so many steps—and not just the two kisses we’ve shared. It feels as if kissing’s the least we’ve done. Emotionally, I’ve been running flat out in Ethan’s direction since the second I stopped beside his broken-down truck. And no matter how I tried to run the other way, I just kept heading toward him, with need and desire barely keeping pace. My
heart’s been racing so fast that it left those kisses in the dust.
And a kiss couldn’t have a hope of catching up to the way he’s looking at me now. As if he’d give me everything. Maybe he can see everything I want in the way I’m looking back. Carefully, making certain not to let my rings touch him, I trace my fingertips down the side of his face, the stubble covering his jaw lightly rasping beneath my skin.
“You said you like being the boss,” I tell him. “But hold back for me? Just for a little bit.”
“Anything you want, Makena.” His vow is harsh with restrained need. Because he’s hungry but controlling it.
I reach back and grip the top of the swing, because I’m not so certain of my own restraint, and whether I’ll remember not to touch him with that hand. My pulse thunders in my ears as I lower my head, and I wonder if he still hears each bump and splash in the night, or if his world is narrowing like mine is, until there’s nothing but the feel of his rigid muscles and thick arousal between my thighs, the rough wood beneath my curling fingers, his hot breath against my lips.
And maybe he’s right about science. There’s surely a logical explanation for the pounding of my heart, the liquid desire the melting through me. Some kind of chemistry that accounts for it all.
But the first brush of my mouth over his feels like magic, too. Something that shouldn’t make such perfect sense…yet it does. And perhaps my physical response can never close the distance that my heart has already run, but this kiss is going to try. With nothing more than a soft press of lips, a mingling of breath, desire burns an electrifying path over every inch of my skin before burrowing under and turning my blood to molten lust.
Even more exhilarating is Ethan’s response—a ragged indrawn breath, a tremor through his hardened form—signaling the effort of maintaining his restraint. As if this barely-there kiss is as devastating to his senses as a bullet. Yet still he manages to control his hunger…and I’m not sure what will happen when he unleashes it.