I think she likes biting and I test the theory, letting my teeth sink in just a little bit more.
“Oh please,” she says, her voice shaking. She writhes beneath me and I bite and lick, taking my time to lavish her breasts with attention. They seem to be so sensitive, no matter where my mouth or hands touch her. “I can feel you,” she says, panting. “Please, Micah…Micah…”
I don’t know if she means she can feel my cock pressing at her or if she means she can feel that connection, that sense of possessiveness that means: my mate.
But soon she’s shoving down her jeans and her panties, grabbing my hand, guiding it to her core. I palm her, squeezing a little, pressing my finger up against her clit only for a moment, teasing. She scratches my back in retaliation .
“Ah! Wait…” She pulls away and it’s awkward as she reaches into her nightstand for a box of condoms that spill out over the covers. She helps me unzip my fly and I see the pleased quirk of her lips as I shove down my boxer briefs and my cock springs out. She lies back and watches me roll the condom on and when she touches herself, I’m worried I’ll suddenly come without ever feeling the inside of her.
But it’s seriously about the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Jesus, please wait for me,” I say, my voice shaking all over the place. “I’m about to come all over you.”
That makes her laugh and she throws her head back but then I’m on top of her again and somehow we’re both laughing as I kiss her face and her mouth and the tip of her nose, reaching to slide my hand down her thigh. I pull away to look in her eyes as I guide myself inside her.
She engulfs me. She’s hot and tight and I’m horribly embarrassed when tears prick my eyes because I’m inside my mate, I’m sure of it, and she’s looking at me like I’m the sun.
“Luna,” I say, pressing deep into her.
“Yes, Micah.” I’m not sure what the question was but my body seems to know and then I’m thrusting inside her and she’s wrapped around me.
We rock together and I can feel her heartbeat against me and also that sense that there’s something important I’m missing again. It makes me want to hold her even closer as we kiss and fuck.
My wolf seems to overpower me and then I’m pulling out and pounding into her again and she spurs me on, her nails digging into my shoulders as she takes me. I reach down to finger her clit as I thrust into her so hard I’d be worried if she wasn’t shouting “yes” over and over.
We’re both trembling and then she’s screaming into my skin as she comes. I grunt in probably the least masculine way possible, but I feel like I’m at the end of myself as I come apart inside her, her heels digging into my ass.
We ride our bliss out together and then she pushes to roll us over. I pull out of her and fumble to tie off the condom and throw it away before plopping back into the covers.
Luna curls up beside me, resting her head on my arm and her hand on my chest. I turn my head and kiss her hair.
I can’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t throw that “one time only” thing out the window. So I don’t say anything at all. I’m happy just to hold her and let her kiss my chest.
In typical guy fashion, I’m feeling sleepy. I also don’t want to leave her for a second. But I’m pleasantly shocked when she says, “You can sleep here. I’d like you to sleep here. If…if you want.”
She’s a fool if she thinks I wouldn’t want to and I kiss the tip of her nose because I like the cute, befuddled look it puts on her face. Like she can’t believe I’m adorable. Or at least that’s what I like to think it means.
“I’d love to sleep here,” I mutter.
“Micah,” she whispers. “I wish it could be different-“
“Sssh.” I frown and close my eyes. I feel her fingertips smooth out my downturned brow and trace my my lips. I kiss them. “No sad talk.”
I’m dropping off to sleep when I could swear I smell the familiar scent of another shifter. For a moment I’m sure it’s somebody else in her building, maybe walking down the hallways. But I’m slipping into sleep and Luna is cuddled up to me so I think I’m just dreaming. I’m dreaming that Luna is a shifter. The scent is warm like family but it stirs the passion in my blood too. The smell is my mate. I must be imagining it. I could never be so lucky.
“Go to sleep, my love.” I think I hear Luna whisper it and I figure I’m dreaming that too.
In the middle of the night I stir because Luna is shifting against me. I’m half asleep still when I see her get out of bed and still naked, go into the bathroom. I think I see her take a bottle from the cabinet and drink from it. And when she gets back in bed she smells different. But she’s warm against me again and she’s softly kissing my chest as she wraps herself around me once more, a happy octopus. I put the strange vision down to another dream.
In the morning, I wake up alone. But I can hear Luna showering. The reality both of what we shared and that Luna is human sinks in. And…I find that I still don’t care. I know I should. Maybe I’m a rebel, maybe I’m optimistic. I just can’t make myself care that she’s human.
When Luna comes out of the bathroom in a towel, I want to pull her right back into bed. Instead I decide to try reasoning with her as she gets ready for work. Though I’m pretty distracted for a few minutes by her body as she dresses, ignoring me, and pretending everything is just peachy.
“Don’t you have to get to work?” She says.
“I have flexible hours,” I say, shrugging. “Listen-”
“Don’t try to…” She waves her hand around vaguely.
I slide to sit on the edge of the bed and tug on the hem of her skirt when she walks by. “Are you really going to pretend like something real didn’t happen last night?”
She stops and looks at me sadly and steps between my knees to press her palms to my cheeks. “I would never pretend that,” she says. “Of course, something real happened. But that doesn’t mean it can happen again.”
“Why?”
“I’m no good for you,” she says, simply, stepping away again.
That makes me snort a laugh. “Geez, what are you? From the wrong side of the tracks? Are you in a girl gang?”
The irony is that she’s right. She’s human and therefore no good for me at all, but it’s not my fault everything inside me is telling me she’s the one.
“Yeah,” she says wryly as she steps into a pair of heels. “I’m in a girl gang. We’re called The Iron Kittens.”
I laugh at that and it hurts. I want to hear all her jokes. Forever. Even the stupid ones. God knows I make enough stupid jokes. It occurs to me that I’m holding her up and she’s being too nice to say anything so I get out of bed, regretfully, and start putting on last night’s clothes.
Most of the buttons snapped off my shirt. I’m going to get whistled at when I go outside. I think I have a spare in my desk at work at least.
“There’s an extra toothbrush in the bathroom,” she says quietly.
A couple of minutes later we’re standing at the door and my heart is breaking.
“And you can’t give me a reason?” I ask.
“You think I don’t want this too?” She says, sounding helpless. “My best friend is with your brother. It would be perfect. You are perfect. If I could? Trust me, Micah. I would.”
I think about the weight of all the expectations on me as a Tremblay, and all the pressure on me to follow the rules, and the consequences if I don’t. I can’t imagine what’s holding her back that’s bigger than that.
“You’re a coward,” I blurt out. I feel bad for saying it and I’m probably just upset. I feel even worse when I see her eyes tear up as she opens the door. “Luna, I’m sorry. Luna-”
“You’re right,” she says. “And it doesn’t change a goddamn thing. Goodbye, Micah.”
She gently pushes me into the hall and shuts the door in my face.
Chapter Five: Luna
I feel like dirt but I don’t blame Micah for that. Maybe I am a cowar
d. The thing is, I consider myself a survivor more than anything else. That’s what my mother raised me to be. Before Michelle, she was the only person who ever gave a damn about me. It feels like a betrayal to not try to save myself the best I can. She’d want me to.
After Micah leaves I go to make coffee in the kitchen and then I have to squeeze my eyes shut and lean against the fridge. I try to shut out what Micah said, but I know it’s just going to repeat and repeat and repeat itself in my head all day.
I go through the motions of my morning and his words drift through my mind even as I keep thinking about his skin on my skin, his lips on my body. Being with Micah had felt like coming home; not the terrible hell of a home I grew up with, but the home I was always meant to have. But the thought of getting to keep that forever seems so impossible. Girls like me, from places like where I come from, don’t get boys like Micah. I’m lucky to be where I am. It seems like tempting fate to ask for more.
At work, I throw myself into the job I’ve got going for some crazy rich chef in Seattle. They want these cabinets that open with motion sensors or something. I do not understand why that is necessary, but it’s going to make me a whole lot of money. I work on auto pilot. During a meeting I tell everyone about the trends I’ve noticed with my recent clients. On my coffee break, I check Instagram. I think of his skin on my skin, the mouth-watering scent of his wolf as his teeth grazed my breast. I think of what he said to me when I shut him out.
You’re a coward.
I let myself cry in the bathroom at work, which I absolutely hate doing. Micah is right about everything. What happened last night was real, more real than anything I’ve ever felt with anyone. The only part of it that surprised me was that he never realized I’m a shifter. I thought somehow he would just know, even if he couldn’t smell it.
My body aches in the best way from the night before. When I close my eyes, I can still feel him inside me. I sit in the stall and replay every moment in my head, even the painful ones. I think of the reverent way his hands touched me and the way he looked at me like he was so lucky. It makes me smile even though I feel like I’ve lost my best chance at happiness by pushing him away.
The memories come when I’m sitting at my desk, focusing on a kitchen layout. Memories I’ve tried so hard to push away, flooding back without me being able to hold them back.
“You’re a coward!”
I’m crouched in the dirt, hugging my knees. I’m eight-years-old and I’m hungry. I don’t think I’ve had food in two days. The rules now are: you only eat what you can hunt yourself once you’re off your mother’s teat. My father says an eight-year-old wolf is a full grown adult and just because I’ve got a tiny human body doesn’t mean that I am any less wolf.
I tried to hunt, I truly did. I watched what the older pups did; sniffing out food, laying in wait, attacking prey without mercy. But the rabbits are so fast and my paws still feel too big and I can’t run fast yet. My father can claim I should be just as tough as a regular wolf all he wants, but we don’t age the same. An eight-year-old wolf who’s not a shifter may be an adult, but I am not. That’s everything I’m thinking about as I hug my knees, sitting in the dirt outside the shack I share with my mother when we’re in human form, but it’s nothing I’m able to articulate yet. For all I know, I should be able to hunt just as well as the grown-up wolves; the huge, scary warriors I see running around the woods of our little pack village with fat bellies, baring their teeth and growling at me because they think it’s funny when I run off in terror.
“You’re a coward!”
That’s one of the older pups, a teenager by human standards. His name is Grayson. Apparently he’s my half-brother. My father has a whole bunch of pups by different mates. I watched Grayson run in with his buddies, all shifted and looking young and cocky and fierce, their proud young wolf bodies muddy and bloody from their hunt. Right before my eyes, Grayson plopped down in the dirt in front of his shack and ripped into a gigantic hunk of deer. I was in my wolf form too, curled up in the dirt and dizzy with hunger. I couldn’t think of anything at all except of how hungry I was. When Grayson tore into his meat, I was starving enough to take a stupid chance. I skulked over to him, whining, and nosed at him without getting too near his food. It was just a question: Can I have some please?
Grayson is a good hunter. He can get meat whenever he wants.
He responded by snapping, growling viciously, and nipping at my ear so hard it bled. I dashed back to my spot and curled up again.
Sometimes I think when I’m human, I feel slightly less hungry than when I’m a wolf. So I shifted then. It’s not a pretty sight. My human form is a scrawny, little eight-year-old all covered with dirt. I wonder what I can eat that’s not meat to tide me over. Leaves maybe.
“Why don’t you fight me?” I’ve lost track of time. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here and thinking about what I can eat aside from what wolves tend to live on. Grayson has since shifted into human form as well. He’s about fifteen. He’s got muscles and when there’s a fight somewhere he goes off with the grown-up wolves and fights too. There’s blood all over his chin. “You want some meat? Go ahead and fight me! ‘Stead of hiding in that shrimpy, human body!”
He’s teasing me. I don’t usually care. It’s not like it matters. But somehow I do feel bad, like I should be able to reasonably fight him. Like I’m a sorry excuse for a wolf. I’ll starve to death because I’m too pathetic to hunt.
“You’re a coward!” Grayson says, laughing. “Hunt or starve, dummy!”
Sometimes, my mom sneaks me meat that she’s hunted. She’s not supposed to. If my father finds out, she’ll be beaten or forced to fight him until she submits. This is how we’re trained to be strong wolves, according to my father.
Grayson’s buddy, Dax, appears and I hug my knees tighter. To me, he’s the scariest of all the older boys even though he mostly just goes along with whatever the other big pups are doing. But he likes to torture me from time to time. More so than the others. I should go inside the shack. My mom’s not there right now but there’s a kind of nest in the corner where I could sleep. If I sleep, I can forget how my head is pounding. I should get up, I think. But I’m so weak.
Dax shifts into his human body and cries, “Lunaaaa! The alpha’s daughter can’t hunt! Hahaha! Alpha’s daughter can’t hunt!” Abruptly, he shifts again and comes bounding at me. I should at least go back to wolf form and I actually try to, but I’m so hungry and wrecked with anxiety, I’m stuck. I can’t shift and I can’t move. I panic and I start to cry and Dax laughs as much as a wolf can laugh and bats at my head with his huge paws. He clamps my arm in his jaws and just holds it there. I’m so petrified I don’t know what to do. I think he’s going to kill me. He stares at me with his amber wolf eyes and I know he’s not playing. He at least wants me to know he could kill me if he wanted. Maybe he tortures all the alpha’s pups this way, or maybe it’s just me. I don’t know. I just know that when I’m this hungry and scared, I wish he’d get it over with already.
Dax clamps down harder, his sharp teeth digging into my tiny arm. His jaws are like a vice. I have no way of escaping without losing my arm. But I don’t scream now. I just stare at him. I think I’m beyond screaming or crying. I just look at him like I’m waiting for him to finish me off. He breaks skin and my arms starts bleeding. It hurts so bad I think I’m going to finally faint.
“Let go of her!” My mother appears, looking in no better shape than me. Worse maybe. She’s got a bad bruise under her eye. I have to think that’s from him; dear old dad, the alpha. “Scat! Scat!”
Dax lets go and growls before running off into the woods. At least he knows better than to mess with one of my father’s mates, even if the pups are up for grabs.
“Come inside, sweetie,” my mother says.. She looks so tired. In our shack, she takes some meat from her pocket. She leans on her hand at our little table. The shack is just one tiny room. It’s practically made of cardboard. We mainly live
like wolves, is the thing. We’re not supposed to want human vices like, oh, shelter or money. But I’ve heard my mom say that other packs aren’t so strict like that. Other packs live like humans and like wolves. My father thinks that’s a betrayal to being a shifter. Hence, the shacks. “I’m sorry you’re hungry, sweetie,” she says, her voice monotone. “I haven’t had a chance to hunt and if anyone saw me giving you food…”
I scarf up the meat so fast I almost feel sick but it staves off the worst of my terrible headache. I curl up at my mom’s feet and whimper, wishing she didn’t look so sad. She strokes my fur and I let my eyes slip shut. If it wasn’t for my mother, I don’t think I’d have a reason to live. Even at eight.
Another eight years later, my father starts talking about mating me off to one of the young wolves.
That’s when my mother finally plots our escape.
Reliving a memory from childhood is a good way for me to want to get drunk fast, but I don’t think anything good would come of it. I never let myself remember my childhood. What I do instead is to find ways to keep myself busy, I make jokes, I never shut up, I listen to music, and I do just about anything I can think of to never give those memories the chance to come back and haunt me.
But shit catches up to you eventually.
I need something to do. Other than Micah. Although, wouldn’t that be nice? The memory messes with my head for the next few hours. I feel dark and weird and bleak, like damaged goods. That ridiculous feeling that I’m a bad wolf, that I’m a pathetic excuse for a shifter is in my head again. My mother would disappear sometimes for days, pulled along to hunt or fight with the others or just to entertain my alpha father. My half-siblings were no help. I was left to fend for myself, terrified always that my mother wouldn’t come back and I’d be alone for real.
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