by Sy Walker
“To the manor,” he barked to his driver. They drove away from the bar without another word.
Chapter 9
“He did what?” Tanner exclaimed with a laugh. His date with Sandy had gone well and they had chosen to meet up together after the gig. Mel was angry and distraught, but mostly she was hungry. They met at a diner a few blocks from the bar and saw that Sandy was definitely right up Tanner’s alley. She was smart, conspiratorial, and gorgeous.
“I’m serious, he just knocked that guy out for no reason!”
“Actually, shifters always have a reason,” Sandy interjected. “I was with one for a few years…their senses are highly attuned to things we only find out the hard way. Maybe he was just protecting you.”
“Yeah right! He’s just so possessive.”
“Can I see what he looks like?” Sandy asked.
“Sure, I’ll pull up his profile.”
Melanie took her phone out and tried to log into her ComeShift app. She received an error message and then tried again. Finally, a screen popped up saying her account had been permanently suspended.
“Ugh! You see what I mean?! He kicked me off his stupid app. He doesn’t want me to be with anybody else. He just wants all men to stay away from me.”
“Yeah, that can be a little overbearing,” Sandy said with a short laugh. “Shifters are different than us.”
“Yeah, Sandy is an expert! We started talking when I posted on the forum about my book.”
“That’s cool,” Mel said, putting her phone away. She was still glowering though. Who did Weston think he was? Just because things didn’t work out between them didn’t mean that she should be punished so severely.
They chatted a while longer before she decided it would be bad form to intrude on their date any longer. She headed back home to her apartment and showered before climbing into bed. She could still smell Weston there, and although she was furious at him, she wished that he could have just been a little more perfect. She couldn’t help but feel a thrill when she thought about him coming in and having his way with her.
But she had to stay strong. Whether the sex was good or not, she couldn’t get involved with a man who wouldn’t let her have a life of her own. It wasn’t healthy. She would just have to find a way to move on without him.
***
Weston was furious. He had deleted her account from his app. If she didn’t want to be with him, there was no way he would allow her to meet other shifters through his own service.
She clearly didn’t trust his senses. But that was her own loss. He only wished that he could get her smell out of his house. It was making him anxious.
Weeks went by without word from her, and he found himself feeling angry with himself. It was harder than hell to behave according to human standards. He was always so full of adrenaline and attuned to others in a secret, intimate way that the shifter’s reactions had come to be taboo in their society. Nobody understood their spontaneous violence and intimidating sexual chemistry.
He had never met someone who caused him to respond in such a physical, raw way. No other women had ever invoked the wolf in him so casually, and handled it in such a sexy manner.
Maybe he could try to make it up to her somehow. He picked up his phone.
“Get me Jonas Neil,” he said to his secretary.
“Right away, sir,” she replied. Within minutes he was speaking to Jonas, one of the most successful talent agents in the music industry. He told him about Melanie and her band, and they agreed to meet that evening at her latest gig. He was still following her band’s website, and felt a small thrill at the idea of helping her with the one thing she loved to do the most.
Chapter 10
The set ended and Mel was cashing in on her free drink from the bar. Tammy and George had already left, and she was feeling a little bit lonely. Suddenly, Weston was there. And beside him was a blonde man with a bright smile. He reminded her of a car salesman.
“What do you want?” she asked Weston.
“This is Jonas Neil,” Weston said. “He can represent your band.”
“I don’t need your help!” she cried. “If I get successful, I want it to be because of my own hard work. Not as some pathetic attempt to get back on my good side.”
“Ouch,” Jonas laughed. “He didn’t tell me to like you, he just told me I should listen.”
“Whatever. Thanks anyway, Mr. Neil,” Mel said, storming out of the bar.
Weston and Jonas exchanged looks and Weston sighed.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said, walking away from Jonas. “Better luck next time.”
Jonas smiled and shrugged as Weston followed Melanie, who had disappeared out into the night.
***
“Hey pretty girl,” a gaunt, pockmarked man said, stepping in front of Melanie. She had wandered out into the alley and somehow got herself right in the middle of the raunchy crowd who had been leering at her throughout the whole gig. She pretended not to notice, but the men had been extremely creepy. One of them was the man that Weston had punched during one of her other gigs.
“Where are you heading?” another man asked, grinning cruelly at her.
“That was quite a show you put on,” a third man said as they closed in on her. “Mind giving us a private one?”
“Get away from me,” Melanie cried, turning away and trying to run. She ran right into two other men, who grabbed her by the arms.
“She’s ours now,” the man to her left sneered.
“Let go!” she cried.
Suddenly, a shriek pierced the air. But it wasn’t Melanie’s voice. It was the man who had her right arm. She was suddenly released and fell back onto the pavement as a black streak leapt past her. She squinted her eyes and gasped as she saw a giant black wolf, his fur glimmering silver in the moonlight. She recognized him immediately as Weston.
The wolf lunged at the men, knocking them off balance and tearing viciously at them. Three of the men ran away, but two thought they could outsmart him. Weston lunged at them, tearing their throats out. He stood panting over their bodies before slowly walking away. Melanie stared after him as he walked down the narrow alley, disappearing into the shadows as he began shifting back into his human form.
Suddenly, she remembered what Sandy had said. Shifters had a different way of perceiving the world. He had always been able to tell how she really felt, so maybe he could tell how others truly felt as well. Their true intentions might be more clear to him than they were to her.
She scrambled to her feet and chased after Weston.
“Weston,” she panted, finally catching up to him. He turned to her, fixing his glowing golden eyes onto hers.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She stared at him her heart hammering in her chest. She nodded and looked him up and down. After his shapeshifting, he was completely naked, his perfect, muscular body rippling and illuminated by the soft silver moonlight.
Suddenly, the fire that he had ignited within her was kindled again, and his eyes shimmered knowingly as she looked up at him, biting her bottom lip.
“You can tell…about good people and bad ones…” she said, slowly approaching him, her heart thudding heavily in her ears. She had been so afraid she might never get a chance to set things right with him, and now that he was there…
“Yes,” he said. “I just want to protect you. I follow my instincts. That’s just how it is.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.”
She expected him to answer, but instead, he leapt toward her, running his hands up and down her curves. Her body was ablaze with longing. She had somehow been able to stay away from him for this long, but now she could resist him no longer.
He slipped her panties from beneath her dress and ran his hands down her curvy body. He held her ass firmly in place and she felt his cock stiffen against her thigh. She moaned softly and felt the rush of hot fluid ready her for him to enter.
He
didn’t wait. The second he smelled her ready herself for him, he lost all control and shoved himself inside of her. Melanie groaned deeply as he pushed the full length of himself inside of her, pinning her against the brick wall of the alley and taking her urgently. They had both been dreaming of another experience like this, and she closed her eyes as her body was stuffed again and again by his enormous, pulsing member. She could feel his every vein sliding against her sensitive walls and shuddered, just on the brink of climax.
“Already?” he teased with a whisper.
She grinned up at him and he shoved himself hard inside. It pushed her to the brink of her orgasm and she cried out loud, her body quaking and contracting around his swollen cock. He growled, finally letting himself shudder and spasm with a powerful orgasm. She closed her eyes as she was filled with his hot seed, and quaked around him as he pounded into her until he was completely done unleashing his load inside of her.
They panted together against the brick wall, and he took her hand, leading her down the alley and into his limousine. He ducked inside quickly before anybody saw that he was naked and he pulled her inside.
“We’re going back to the manor to try that properly now,” he whispered into her ear. She shuddered against him and leaned her head on his broad shoulder. He had proven himself, protected her, and done his best to make her life better. She couldn’t imagine her life with another man, and they rode in silence, both of them grateful that they finally had each other.
M/F: The Grey
Chapter One
The house sat in the middle of a wooded area, surrounded by trees and a gravelled pavement that served as both road and driveway. Savannah got out of the car and stared at the quaint little house that was going to be her home for the next six months.
“This is what I always imagined Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house to look like,” Savannah said, turning back to her parents.
“Do you like it?” her father had taken to speaking very precisely for her benefit. She never needed to wear her hearing aid around her parents because she could read their lips perfectly.
“It’s all right,” Savannah said reluctantly. In fact, she did like it. There was a sense of cosiness that clung to the house and the town that she had never experienced before. Still, she didn’t want her parents to know that, because she didn’t want them thinking she was happy about the move.
She stayed outside and walked toward the trees that stood beside the house like sentinels. They had a strong, oaky smell, but there was an undercurrent of something else in the air. The back of the house faced a series of small hills that led up to larger ones. They were paved with grass and rock and Savannah could sense the difference in the air up there.
A half hour later she went back into the house to join her parents. They had bought the house with the furniture included. The sofa was upholstered with a thick fabric that held a heavy pattern of flowers. Instead of blinds in the windows, there were curtains in a variety of mismatched floral patterns. There were floorboards and carpets instead of tiles, and a staircase, with block stairs, and an old-fashioned railing.
“You could be right,” Savannah’s mother said, when she walked into the kitchen. “Maybe Red Riding Hood’s grandmother did live here.”
Savannah smiled, grabbed her duffel bag, and walked upstairs in search of her room. It was nestled in the corner overlooking the mountains and the hooded trees. There was one large window that brought in all the light and bathed the sparse contents of her room in an ivory glow. She set down her duffel bag and examined her small four-poster bed.
She couldn’t hear her father walk in, but she sensed his presence the moment he appeared at her door, and she turned around.
“Remember when you were six and all you wanted was a four poster bed?”
Savannah rolled her eyes at him. “Is this you coming through for me?”
“It most definitely is.” Her father nodded.
“Thanks, Dad,” Savannah signed to him sarcastically. “Twelve years late, but I’ll take it anyway.”
He winked at her and moved on down the hall. Savannah closed the door and walked to her window. The light was already fading, and she knew it would be dark within the hour. She stuck her head out the window and closed her eyes so she could concentrate.
The wind caressed her face, sending a comforting coolness across her body. The air smelled of smoky oak and fresh dirt. Savannah froze in place as some other unfamiliar scent washed across her. It was subtle at first, but then grew stronger. She had never caught that scent before; it was oddly pleasant and difficult to place. Savannah opened her eyes and looked around, but there was nothing to see save the different greens and browns of nature.
Savannah had never thought she was unlucky. She had never experienced sound the way that normal people did, and couldn’t understand why it was so important as a result. She was finally able to hear sound with the help of powerful hearing aids, but she hadn’t been as thrilled as her doctors and parents had been. She liked her silent world, and the advantages it gave her.
Ever since she was a little girl, her other senses had been heightened. She could smell more sharply, she could see more clearly, and she could feel more acutely, but it was more than just that. She had an intuition about things…about people. At least, that was what her parents called it–intuition. But for Savannah it was something more.
She was almost nine years old when she realized people in the world had their own specific aura. There were many similarities between auras, but for the most part, everyone was unique in their own way, everyone was different. She could sense their moods and their character. It was stronger with some people in comparison to others, but it was always there.
Sometimes she saw flashes of things in the back of her eyelids, sometimes she smelled an extra layer of scent hiding in the whole, and sometimes it was as simple as seeing what was right in front of her. It was a hard thing to try to explain, and it was hard to understand another person’s aura. Over time, Savannah began to assign colours to fit the emotions she felt coming off of people. It was then she realized that colour seemed to be as infinite as emotion.
Her father had always referred to her as a military brat and her mother liked to call her little gypsy, but Savannah had always thought of herself as tumbleweed. She had no control over where she went when the wind blew, and she had no choice but to go where it pushed her. In her case, her parents were the wind, and she went wherever they did.
Savannah had lived in four different countries, eleven different cities, and she had changed schools nine times. The downside was that she never had the opportunity to make friends. The upside was that she had met thousands of different people, each with their own unique auras. Very few things surprised Savannah and very few things stumped her. She had an instinct about the world, about people, and about places, and she was very rarely wrong.
Which was why she couldn’t understand why the smell hidden just beneath the wind at her window seemed so unfamiliar. She stared up at the line of trees sitting on one of the shallower hills. They were thicker in that area and exposed very little. The secret scent was coming from that direction, but it still gave her no hints as to what it was.
There was one thing she was certain of--the scent wasn't human.
Chapter Two
“Are you ready for your first day of school?” her father signed from the front seat.
Savannah sighed. “This is my ninth first day at school,” she signed back at him. “At this point, assume I’m always ready.”
“Aw come on,” her mother said, turning to face her from the passenger's seat. “You could sound a little more excited.”
“Yay,” Savannah replied sarcastically.
“Oh, all right,” her mother said. “I suppose you’ve earned the right to be a little…disinterested. Here are your hearing aids.”
Savannah shook her head. “I don’t want to wear them.”
“Come on, darling,” her mother
insisted. “Things will go a lot easier if you just wear them.”
Savannah sighed in frustration, but she took them anyway. She knew her mother was right; it was just that she hated the first day of starting out at a new school. She always felt like a monkey in a zoo, even more so, considering that she sensed things that were normally a mystery to most people.
“Can’t I just be home-schooled?”
“Come on now,” her father said evenly. “It’s going to be great. Stay positive.”
“I hate how chirpy the two of you are whenever we move someplace new,” Savannah said. “Just because you’re both so positive all the time, doesn't mean I’ll forget how much this all sucks.”
“Honey, I know this hasn’t been easy for you,” her mother said gently. “And I know you’ve had to suffer for our lifestyle but--”
“You can’t change it,” Savannah finished for her. “I know, I know. See you after school.” She got out of the car and headed toward the main entrance.
Grey Mountain High School was probably the smallest high school she had seen in six years. It had that small town charm to it, but that also meant its student population was just as small, which meant that everybody’s eyes would be on the new girl who had transferred in the middle of the school year.
Almost instantly, Savannah felt everyone’s eyes on her. She was thankful she had chosen to wear her dark jeans and grey hoodie. Hopefully she'd be able to blend into the earth tones of the town that way, and nobody would see her. The thought was so ridiculous that she smiled to herself before she realized she was actually smiling at a boy who was standing a few feet away from her.
He was tall, at least six feet. He was leaning casually against one of the trees that led up to the building, and surrounded by a group of boys who seemed to be talking to him, but he wasn’t paying them the slightest bit of attention. His eyes were fixed on Savannah as though he'd recognized her. His black hair was on the long side, setting a fierce contrast to the pale grey of his eyes.