by Trisha Linde
“Hmmm, good point,” she said, musing. “I admit, it’s not a perfect explanation, but I’m not exactly an expert in magic wolves. Or non-magic wolves, for that matter.” She rose from her chair and put on her jacket.
“Wait, you’re leaving?” I felt a little shiver of panic at being left alone with Wolf without any adult supervision. Who knew what kind of trouble we would get up to if we were left alone.
“I have some shopping to do while Reggie’s got Daniel occupied.” She paused, looking between Wolf and I. She must’ve seen something in my body language because she added, “Did you need something else from me?”
“Yes!” I shouted, bursting from my spot on the couch. Wolf and Ella looked at me startled. “Um, I mean, do you have any clue how to get fake ID?” It was the first thing I could think of, and I knew she wouldn’t judge me.
“Ooh, I like where this is going. Tell me more,” she said, settling back into her seat and resting her head in her hand. “Will there be alcohol involved? Are we crossing state lines?”
I laughed shakily. “It’s not for us. It’s for Wolf. He doesn’t exactly have a birth certificate. Or a social security number or passport. According to the government, he doesn’t exist. I was thinking, if he wants to live here, he’s going to need some proof of citizenship, or who knows where he might end up.”
“You may be right. And it just so happens, I know a guy.”
“A guy?”
“Yes, a guy. Don’t ask questions. Let’s just say, when you’re a lawyer, you sometimes rub shoulders with some seedy people. I’ll take care of it. Let me have a few days. It is the holiday season, after all.”
“By all means, even counterfeiters deserve a Christmas holiday.”
Ella smacked me on the shoulder. “I know you’re joking, but you’re not wrong. My guy’s a family man. I’ll be in touch,” she said, blowing a kiss at me over her shoulder.
And with that, she sauntered out the door without a care in the world. As the door closed behind her, a cold draft of air blew through the room, though it did little to cool the heat of my skin. I swear, Wolf had pressed himself closer to me in the last seconds since Ella left. Had he always been pressed against me like this?
It would be too obvious if I leaned away from him, but I needed to escape the heat. I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust. I could almost imagine how quickly this polyester couch would engulf when I became the human torch.
I cleared my throat awkwardly and stood up, under the guise of getting a refill on my coffee.
“I wasn’t being completely honest. I do remember some things, you know,” Wolf said softly.
I turned back, almost reluctantly, knowing that the mere sight of him might be enough to draw me back to his side. He looked almost small in the couch, caving in on himself. “What do you remember?” I asked.
“I said I didn’t have all my ancestors’ memories, but I have flashes of them. We… I wasn’t meant to live as a wolf. None of us were. We’re humans by nature, and it’s why we’ve never truly belonged with the pack. Every generation, my ancestors have felt the call to return to their human world. It’s almost like a rite of passage, except instead of marking our passage into manhood, it only served to strengthen our bond to the wolf.”
I tried to understand what he was saying. The words were almost contradictory. They didn’t fit in with the wolves, but they kept returning. “I don’t… What do you mean?”
“The original wolf, the settler Ella was talking about. His name was Edmund North. He was a British explorer, travelling with William Penn. When he met Adam Evertssoen, everything changed. The area was populated with Dutch, and when the English first came through, looking to settle, it was a source of conflict. Edmund and Adam began as rivals, but soon became much more.” Wolf’s expression softened. “I can still see what Adam looked like, pregnant with Edmund’s child.”
I found myself floating back across the room and lowering myself to the sofa beside Wolf. I reached out tentatively and took his hand in mine. When his eyes met mine, they were shining with tears.
“When Adam died, taking their child with him, it broke Edmund. I remember the hollowness he felt inside; I’ve carried it with me every day of my life, even if I didn’t recognize it for what it was. My ancestors, they felt the pull to return to the human world just as I did, because it’s where we belong. But when they arrived here, they found there was nothing for them. They were just as empty, surrounded by all these people, as they were in the woods, miles from everywhere. So they returned to the pack, giving up their humanity, and started some semblance of a life, continuing the bloodline for another generation, waiting for an end to this cursed existence. At least when we are wolves, we can forget.”
I squeezed his hand. “Is that what you want? To forget?”
A soft breath escaped his lips as though he’d been waiting for me to ask him this very question. “No,” he whispered. “I don’t want to forget.”
Wolf leaned closer, his breath tickling my lips. I felt like I was being torn in two. Half of me, the voice of reason (also known as the voice of my father), telling me to be respectable, to stay in line. It would be improper to lean in to this man, to allow him to take me like my body was crying out for. We’d just met! Proper omegas who were looking to get married and settle down, they didn’t give in to their base urges.
But, oh, those urges were beckoning me. They were taunting me, pushing, cajoling. I wanted to know the taste of his lips.
Which half was stronger? I was sure I would be tested in the night to come.
The tension was broken by the gurgle of my stomach. “Food!” I burst out and bolted upright. “We need to get some lunch. Right now.”
Wolf stood much more slowly, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I could eat.”
Something about the way he said it made me think he didn’t mean food. My gulp was far too loud in the quiet room. “Right… We should go then.”
“Lead the way,” he said, and we trailed out into the snow, cooling our fevered bodies.
For now.
10
Wolf
The rest of the day was both exciting and new, but also familiar like your favorite pair of faded jeans. The fact that I even knew what jeans felt like was beyond bizarre, considering I’d never actually worn a pair of pants before today.
Noel took me to his favorite restaurant for lunch, a little dive called Bella’s Diner. When we walked in, I almost felt like I was reliving a scene out of my father’s memories. The decor was very 50’s with lots of chrome and neon. Although, now that I thought about it, there was a chance that my father actually had been here, which could explain the familiarity. We slipped into a booth, squeaking across the vinyl cushions. I was instantly in love with the place. It didn’t hurt when the waitress slid a piece of hot apple pie in front of me.
Noel was sitting across from me, cradling a cup of coffee between his hands, but there was nothing I wanted more than to squeeze in beside him. I could do a better job of warming him up than that coffee, I was sure of it.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Noel’s eyes darted up to mine. His eyes were a pale blue, icy to match the wintery scene outside. They shone with the reflected neon lights. Hmmm, maybe there was a perk to being across from him. At least this way I could admire the way he blushed under my intense scrutiny.
He cleared his throat. “So…” He was struggling to fill the silence, but I didn’t feel the need to help him. I thought it was adorable the way he fumbled with his words. “I have questions, but honestly I have no idea how to ask them. I don’t want to offend you. I’m no good at this.”
“Good at what? We’re just talking. If you’d like, we could skip the talking and move on to the fun part.”
Noel blushed to an even deeper shade of pink. His eyes flicked down to the coffee cup, out of the window. He couldn’t hold my gaze. “The fun part?”
“Mmmm,” I moaned an affirmative. His hormones gave a
spike and I breathed them in deeply. Another shifter’s head turned in our direction at the aroma, but I glared at him until he looked back to his food, head bowed in submission. “Or if you’re not ready for that, you could just ask your questions.”
Noel gave a little chuckle. “Suddenly my questions don’t seem so daunting.”
“I figured as much.” I reached across the table and gave Noel’s hand a gentle stroke with the tip of my finger. “I’m living with hundreds of years worth of pain and heartbreak inside me. I promise, nothing you ask me will upset me.”
His eyes softened, and when I moved to pull back from him, he reached out and held my hand within his. His skin was warmed from his mug and heated my own chilled fingers. “I’m so sorry that you have to carry all that pain,” he whispered. “It’s not fair. The burden is too much for any one man to bear.”
“But that’s the thing,” I said. “Until I shifted into a human, I didn’t even know what this emptiness was. I didn’t have a word for what I was feeling. And now that I’m fully aware, I feel like I have control over it. I have a choice. And I choose not to live under that weight anymore.”
“Is it as easy as that?” Noel asked, a hopeful glint to his expression now. “Can you just choose to ignore that… curse?”
And with that word, I knew he was right. It was a curse. My entire ancestral line had been forced to live this existence, forever alone, until—
Until what? In fairy tales, there was always a way to break the curse. And if there was magic within me as Reggie had sensed, then maybe there was some kind of magic key to fit the lock, to release the chains that had bound my family for so long.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I intend to do my best to leave the past where it belongs. It’s time to move on.”
“I can sleep on the couch,” I offered. We were standing side by side, staring at the small bed. Noel didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even sure he had blinked. “Hell, I could sleep on the floor. These carpets are like velvet compared to the ground.”
Noel gave a little chuckle, so I knew he was listening at least. He sobered quickly, though, and turned his head to look at me from the side. “I don’t want you to sleep on the floor.” I almost didn’t hear him, his words were spoken so softly. “I don’t want you to sleep on the couch either.”
I looked around the small room. “That doesn’t leave a lot of options.” But then my stomach sank. There was one option I hadn’t even considered. “Did you want me to leave?” My heart lurched, waiting for his response. I felt sick, as if my dinner were trying to claw its way back up my throat.
Instead of answering, Noel reached out and entwined his fingers with mine. Together we stood hand in hand in the darkness, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
The room was almost pitch black even though it was still early. It had started getting dark even before we’d eaten dinner, and now there was only a soft diffused light from the streetlight, filtering in through the window. The fresh snow gave everything an ethereal glow, and in this light, it was easy to believe that magic was real.
I could tell that Noel was attracted to me; his body was sending all the right signals, I would be a fool to miss them. But I wasn’t in the habit of pouncing on just anyone. I refused to be an animal any longer, I needed more than just physical chemistry.
With the warmth of his palm against mine, I knew beyond a doubt that I felt more for Noel than I ever could have imagined in such a short time. But did he feel anything for me? Just yesterday he’d hit me with his car. It felt like so much had happened in just 24 hours. In fact, it felt like whole lifetimes had passed me by today.
I watched Noel’s silhouette, trying to gauge his expression in profile. When he turned to me, his face disappeared completely into shadow, and I found myself reaching up to touch the lines of his face so I could read his mood.
Noel leaned into my touch. “I want you,” he said, and my heart soared. I moved closer, wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him closer. “But…”
I froze. “But?” I began to pull back, but Noel halted my retreat by grabbing hold of my belt loop.
“Don’t run away. Please.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassured him. “But I have a strict policy about consent. If you are even remotely hesitant, I will not move forward.”
I could feel his smile, hear the upturning of his lips in the darkness. “How chivalrous,” he teased, but I could tell that he meant it.
“What can I say, I’m a man from an era long past.”
“A dying breed.” He placed a hand against my chest, and I felt as though he were measuring my heartbeat against his palm. “This is hard to explain.”
“Take your time. We have all night. And the next night, and the night after that.”
Noel took a deep steadying breath. “We barely know each other. I feel like it’s too soon to feel what I feel. And because of that, I don’t know if I can trust these feelings. They’re too… potent. They’re almost overwhelming.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about because I felt it too. It was like my blood had thickened in my veins, my heart pounding so hard to push these emotions through my body. It stole my breath from my lungs, my strength from my limbs. But even as it stole everything from me, it replaced these stolen items with something better. My lungs were filled with Noel’s breath, and it tasted sweet against my tongue. Though my legs felt too weak to stand, I knew I could run any distance to get to him.
Even as I tried to express all these things, I knew that mere words would fall short of showing Noel how I felt. I stepped just a fraction closer, closing the gap between us by half, and then paused. Noel shifted closer as well, tugging at my belt loops. I placed one hand against Noel’s cheek, feeling the soft stubble against my skin. Seriously, I couldn’t get enough of how textures felt against my skin.
I leaned in but hesitated. “May I?”
“You’d better,” Noel panted and thrust up onto his toes to meet me. His lips crashed against mine, his hands reaching up to tangle in my hair, trapping me against him.
My body responded to his immediately. While I had been so smitten with clothing just moments ago, it was suddenly too restricting, too tight in all the wrong places. Without fur, everything was chafing, and the friction was all wrong. I wanted nothing more than to shuck it all, peeling Noel’s clothes from his body until there was nothing between us, skin on skin.
I groaned into his mouth at the thought of exploring his body with these amazing hands. I could feel Noel hardening against me, and I pressed myself in, relishing the feel of him, even through all these pesky clothes.
But…
I fisted my hands in Noel’s shirt and then tugged him back, widening the gap between us once more. Noel whimpered when our lips parted. “Why?” he whined.
I wished I could see his expression clearly in the gloom. He was likely pouting, and I wanted to pull that lip into my mouth. Instead, I steeled myself against his answer to my question. “You said it was too soon. Do you want to wait?”
He caught his breath in a gasp. I knew he was trying to think clearly, and I wasn’t helping matters with the placement of my hands on his chest. I took another step back. Noel’s silhouette showed him shaking his head to clear it. “Yes,” he said. “I mean, no.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “It would probably be the smart decision. Isn’t there a three-date rule?”
“Back in my ancestors’ days, it was wait until marriage.”
“When you put it that way, three dates doesn’t seem so unreasonable.” He laughed sadly.
We stood there, uncertain, three feet apart. “Now what?” I asked him. “We’re right back where we started.”
“Yep, right back to the awkward sleeping arrangement.” Noel reached out tentatively with his hand and felt around for mine. “Do you think… we could maybe just sleep next to each other? No funny business?”
“While I don’t think there would be anything funny about o
ur business,” I said huskily, “yes, I promise I will be the perfect gentleman.”
“Sure, we’re two adults. I think we can manage making adult decisions. Yep.”
When he didn’t make a move towards the bed, I made the first move. I padded over to the bed and pulled the blankets back. The sheets were cool against my skin, and while I wanted nothing more than to pull Noel down onto them and heat them up properly, I knew there would be a potential that he would regret it.
And I didn’t want to be one of his regrets.
Noel approached the bed, and I pushed him down gently onto the mattress. “I don’t normally sleep fully dressed,” he said.
“Neither do I,” I teased.
“Huh, I never really thought about that. I guess all these clothes probably feel a bit… restraining.”
“You have no idea,” I practically growled, and I was sure that he understood exactly what I meant by that.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Noel offered. “I’ll take off my shirt if you do.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, but it was wasted since he couldn’t see my expression in the dark. “I can see no downside to this deal.”
“I never said I wasn’t a fair man. Besides, it’s a win for me too.” And with that, he slid his shirt off. I could see the way the moonlight shone across his skin, and it was taking everything I had not to reach out and run my fingertips along his torso.
So, I did the only thing I could. I removed the temptation. I pulled the blankets up and tucked them up around his chin. “Warm enough?” I said, stifling my chuckle as I wrapped the edges of the blanket up around him.
“Ummm.”
“Perfect.” I pulled my shirt over my head, because that was the deal, and then laid down on top of the blankets and sidled up to Noel’s bundled form.
“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said, wiggling around in his cocoon.
“Consider yourself lucky. I have an ancestor’s memory about bundling.” The way I said it almost sounded like a threat.