WithHerCraving

by Lorie O'Clare

  Jarvis wanted to mount her and fuck her right where they were, on the top of the mountain under full sunshine. He wanted to feel her underneath him, her body tight with his. More than once on their trek he’d tried mounting her. Each time she’d darted out from underneath him. He’d chased her up different parts of the mountain. She’d run faster than the wind each time.

  One thing he’d noticed, his adorable little Cariboo never made a tree fall or tried shoving him or Jaeger away from her with some unnatural force. She hadn’t tried anything to get rid of the bears but had trusted his ability to handle the situation.

  Katrin had used those Malta werewolf abilities twice. Both times had been to prevent or end something bad. While he chased her, sparred with her or played on their run, she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Katrin only used the Malta werewolf part of her when in a panic. He was sure he had smelled it on her in front of McAllister’s den and on Toubec’s land, now that he thought about it. As long as he made sure she always felt protected, that side of her might not surface again.

  Jarvis wasn’t sure if he would have drawn that conclusion in his human form. But in his fur, with all of his human emotions at bay, everything smelled very clear. Katrin was who she was—half Cariboo and half Malta werewolf. He’d made the choice to run here instead of any other location for a reason. Possibly at first, it was to hide her from the world. He’d chosen this location so he could love her without a pack smelling disgusted over it.

  As he stared into Katrin’s eyes and saw how much she loved him, a type of acceptance settled inside him. It no longer mattered if she were different from other females. She was his. All his. He knew she smelled his pride, and yes, his love. There was no reason to hide how he felt when he would feel this way about her for the rest of their lives.

  He started toward her when his littermate yelped like a pup. Katrin looked at Jaeger, confused. Jarvis didn’t understand at first either. But then he breathed in the fresh mountain air. He stared at the huge open area scattered with wildflowers and tall, swaying grass.

  In a way, this secluded spot, buried high on the mountaintop with the Canadian Rockies creating steep, erect sentinels around them, was similar to other meadows they’d ran through on their way here. A cool breeze blew across the isolated paradise. Ice-capped mountains were a better backdrop than any wallpaper or painted walls could provide. The smells were crisper up here. The sky bluer.

  It was this meadow, these mountains, this sky and the grass brushing against his legs that made their long run and the perils of this journey all worth it. Jarvis yelped and sprang forward toward his littermate.

  This was their meadow, where he and his littermates had learned to hunt, learned to track and what each different scent meant. This was where they’d learned about danger and what the fresh flow of blood tasted like after a kill. They had licked their wounds here and relished in each victory.

  Jarvis’ heart pounded as he raced after Jaeger. The two of them ran at high speed, circling the outer edges of the meadow as if they were running laps on a track. The air made Jarvis’ eyes water. He panted, tasting every scent the mountain breeze carried. His fur fluffed out and moisture that sifted ever so lightly in this high altitude clung to him.

  Then he saw Katrin. She was still standing where he’d left her. Her tail wagged slightly and she panted, her pretty pinkish-red tongue draped lazily out the side of her mouth. Her body was slim. He knew her muscles were toned. She was a female entering her prime, perfect in absolutely every way.

  Her off-white coat was dirty but it gave her a rather seductive appeal, he decided. Her burnt-orange highlights streaked down her shoulder blades and made her look rather wild. His Katrin would be able to seduce him with a blink of those deep silver eyes that stared at him right now. He’d already had a good taste of her wild side and planned on knowing her seductive side just as well.

  Jarvis stared at her a moment too long and ran into the backside of Jaeger.

  His littermate spun around in mid-run. Watch where you’re going, motherfucker, he snarled and snapped.

  Katrin’s tail wagged furiously and she barked, rising onto her hind legs for a moment before jumping in place. She looked like a werewolf desperate to get in on the fun. Jarvis barked in return and left his littermate to strut over to her, as if he’d just performed some heroic feat and would now accept the praise and adoration from his female. He wouldn’t deny it. He was head over tail for Katrin and had damn near just proven it.

  It was time to get those clothes off from around her waist, which from the looks of it, would be more work than it had been when they’d still been on Toubec’s land.

  * * * * *

  “So this is your land you grew up on?” Katrin asked.

  After the three of them had changed back into their human forms, they’d started exploring. He wanted to show his mate every blade of grass from where he’d been whelped.

  They trudged to the other side of the meadow, all of them looking worse for wear in clothes that had been tied to their waist for the duration of their run.

  “Yup,” Jarvis answered, his thoughts already spinning over the many things they would have to do over the next week or so. “Our den was just on the other side of those boulders.”

  “The two of us had quite a few adventures in this meadow when we were cubs,” Jaeger offered. “Although I swear it used to be the size of a football field.”

  Katrin’s laughter was melodic and she willingly slid her hand into his when Jarvis led the way over the rocky terrain.

  “We’ll camp here tonight and tomorrow start rebuilding.”

  “What?” Katrin looked at him, surprised. “You want to set up a den here? But, the humans—” she began.

  “We’re as safe living here as we would be anywhere.” He leapt off a boulder then turned and reached to help her down to the ground.

  “Because of me,” she murmured, looking at him a moment before reaching out with one hand. She slipped her hand in his but jumped to the ground without holding on.

  He hated how she suddenly smelled sad. Jaeger gave him a side glance but his littermate wouldn’t step in and growl during their conversation. Jarvis cared too much to be caught smelling of a lie. The conversation would happen sooner or later but he had hoped it would be later and in a different setting. Not that he’d conjured the ideal way to discuss her being half Malta werewolf.

  In truth, she was perfect in so many ways that he didn’t want to focus on her faults. He accepted who she was and knew that was why they were here. But this was ideal land, incredible, unscathed territory, and he doubted humans would come around twice. Jarvis would be ready for them if they did.

  “All of us were happy living on the mountain,” he said, searching for a way to say what was in his heart so she wouldn’t smell sad.

  “All of us were happy living with our litters. But all of our litters aren’t around to run with us anymore.”

  “Once we’re settled in and have established our territory up here again, we can go down the mountain so you can contact your littermates.”

  Katrin’s face lit up. He had said the right thing. But Jaeger’s growl and sudden spicy scent threw all of them into silence.

  Ahead of them, with the thick patch of trees still surrounding it, was the burned remains of Jarvis and Jaeger’s den.

  Without giving it thought, he and his littermate had walked to their den, or what remained of it. The black skeletal shell of what once had been the den he’d been whelped in and in which he had hundreds of happy memories now turned his stomach. Jarvis stared, unable to look away.

  The last time he’d seen his den, it had been up in flames. They had run the night of the fire, as had a lot of litters. It had been something he’d blocked out, seen no reason to dwell on once they’d arrived in Prince George. Now, staring at the charred remains, something jerked against his heart. He wasn’t able to move but simply stared, that entire horrific night when he’d believed his world had
ended flooding back into his brain.

  “Jaeger and I, and our sire and mother, had done everything in our power to try and put the fire out and save our den,” Jarvis began, his throat suddenly so dry it was hard to speak. It was as if he still breathed in the heavy smoke billowing from their den.

  He wasn’t sure why he growled out loud but he’d started, so he continued explaining. “There’s a small waterfall through those trees and we ran back and forth, hauling water in the large water buckets Mom had always used for laundry and to cook. We never had inside plumbing in our den.”

  “There wasn’t a moon that night,” Jaeger continued, as if on cue. He didn’t smell of anything, not sad or angry. His scent was as flat as Jarvis’ tone had been. “There was so much smoke it was hard to see. We all put a bit of muscle into it, letting the change take over just enough to make it easier to fill those buckets then pass them on to each other to douse the fire.”

  “Mom was at the end of the line, closest to the house. She screamed at us, continually howling to move faster, bring water quicker. Her screams were so desperate for more water I think it took us all a moment to smell through the smoke and realize her screams had changed,” Jarvis told her.

  “She shouldn’t have been the one closest to the den,” Jaeger snarled fiercely.

  Once again Katrin’s hand slipped into Jarvis’. This time it wasn’t for support on uneven rocky ground, but support when the flood of emotions suddenly filled the air around them. Suddenly he understood his sire’s reaction to what had happened. He hadn’t the night of the fire. But now, with Katrin there next to him, willing to shoulder his pain when she’d endured so much of her own, made everything smell so clear to him.

  “We weren’t succeeding in stopping the fire.” Jarvis started walking. He wasn’t sure why but he led the way up to their den. “The flames were out of control. Mom caught on fire and we didn’t realize her screams had changed. When we did she was rolling on the ground, trying to put them out. Our sire reached her first, and he’d been the one filling the barrels at the waterfall. He doused her with an entire barrel of water, which did the job. But it was too late.

  “I’ll never get the sound of him howling out of my head when we realized she was dead. And I couldn’t stop him. Fucking tail, I tried,” Jarvis snapped and stormed ahead of them to the ruins that remained of their den.

  “What happened?” Katrin whispered, the pain in her words as strong as the smell of her sadness.

  Jarvis looked down into her pretty blue eyes. They were bright, rimming with tears, and she didn’t blink as she stared up at him, waiting to hear the rest of the terrible story.

  “When my sire realized Mom was dead, he picked her up into his arms and began howling. It was the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my life. He loved her so much.”

  Katrin nodded as if she knew this to be true in spite of having never met either one of them.

  “My sire ran into our burning den with our mother.”

  “Oh my God!” Katrin wailed. Her hands covered her mouth as the tears that had welled in her eyes slid down her cheeks.

  “Fucking tail,” Jaeger muttered under his breath and stalked away from both of them.

  Jarvis stared at the remains of what had been his litter’s den. Katrin moved next to him and he smelled the salt from her tears. She put her hand on his back but there was no consoling the pain from the loss of his sire and mother.

  “We need to tear all of that down,” he said with conviction and sliced his hand through the air. It didn’t cut the horrific memories of that night from his brain though. Nothing would. “Our den will be built closer to the waterfall.”

  “I’m not sure building our den here is a good idea,” she said, looking away from the charred remains. Remains that had once been solid walls and were now jagged spears facing the sky. “Humans know we are here.”

  “Humans knew we were in Prince George,” he pointed out.

  “But there was the pack. You know there’s safety in numbers. Our lives might have been perfect up here growing up in our dens, but those days are gone. We didn’t have the protection of a pack here in the mountains.”

  “That pack won’t accept us.”

  She shot her attention to him, her blue eyes bright but not with anger as he’d expected. Instead, her expression turned guarded and her scent shifted to something wary.

  “Because I’m half Malta werewolf,” she said, resigned.

  “I can’t change how they feel about the breed.” Jarvis gestured around them. “No one knows we ran in this direction. And on the mountain no one will know. You’ll be Cariboo. That’s all.”

  “But I’m not just Cariboo,” she said, her tone soft as she said the words slowly. Her sadness smelled strong, although Katrin was a compassionate female. It hurt her knowing her bloodline might continue to cause them problems. But she also wept from his story of his sire and mother. It made sense she smelled the way she did.

  There was the slightest hint of something sour that hung in the air between them for only a moment. Jarvis looked at Katrin, searching her face to help confirm what he’d just breathed in. When he inhaled a second time, it was gone. Remembering how well she had masked her emotions in the past, he studied her a second more before saying anything. If he’d thought he’d caught a whiff of disgust it was gone now.

  Jaeger stood in what used to be their living room and looked over at the two of them, sniffing the air. He narrowed his gaze on Jarvis but Jarvis wasn’t going to dwell on how his littermate felt about their conversation.

  “You and I know that, and Jaeger. But no other litter we might meet after building our new den here will ever sniff out the truth of your bloodline.” he clarified.

  “You wish this in order to protect me?” she asked, not looking at him. Instead she stared at the ground while her pretty hair fell forward and shrouded her expression.

  “Katrin, I swear to you that you’ll always be safe running by my side,” he told her, and thought he understood what he’d caught in the air a moment ago. “If you wish, we never have to howl to each other that you aren’t full-blooded Cariboo again.”

  Katrin didn’t comment but walked away toward the remains of the den but stopped before reaching it. She plopped unceremoniously on a round rock that jutted out of the ground. Once he and his littermate had practiced leaping over that very same rock as cubs, except then it had been a giant boulder. Now, with Katrin sitting on it in her wrinkled jeans and dirty sweater, it resembled a throne. Even with her long hair tangled and darker than usual since none of them had bathed yet, she was breathtakingly beautiful.

  She remained there with her back straight as a board and her hair falling in wavy strands almost to her ass. Her long, slender legs were stretched out before her and she pressed her palms on the rock on either side of her. When Jarvis wandered over to assess the remainder of what once had been their den, Katrin stayed where she was, staring at the breathtaking view.

  He and Jaeger didn’t say much. His littermate’s somber scent matched his own. Somehow, walking through and around what was left of the structure brought something that smelled of closure. The past would always be there, unchangeable and engraved in their memories for the rest of their lives. Jarvis and Jaeger’s parents were dead. It was an unspeakable tragedy.

  Returning here caused the pain of their death to resurface. As he confronted his loss, Jarvis knew he might never have done so if they hadn’t returned here. And now, with Katrin by his side, they would replace the pain and injustice done in his past with happy memories and a new litter. Together he and Katrin would rebuild, hunt, share their kill, and restore the wonderful smells created by love to this place that meant so much to him.

  When he returned to her side, Katrin hadn’t moved. She still smelled sad, though. Jarvis wanted to know her thoughts. He also needed to start immediately on a makeshift den to give the two of them privacy. He wanted to spend the night fucking his beautiful mate. They would start their new li
fe here and he vowed she’d never have a sad scent about her again. In order for the two of them to know true happiness, Jarvis knew it had to begin with honesty.

  “There is something I want you to know,” he began, squatting next to her.

  “What’s that?” she asked, looking at him with her beautiful blue eyes.

  If he stared into them every day for the rest of his life, it wouldn’t be enough. “When I told you to leave at McAllister’s den, I think part of me was ashamed of what you’d just done,” he said, whispering. Voicing the truth out loud damn near made the words choke in his throat.

  ”Ashamed?” she choked. “I reacted on instinct. I didn’t even know I was able to do that,” she told him, her words coming faster as she held his gaze. “Why would it shame you to have your female protect you?”

  Katrin started to stand but Jarvis grabbed her arm and forced her to sit back down. “Everyone was so shocked, stunned even. You threw McAllister and me through the air when we were just getting a good fight going.”

  “You were fighting because of me.”

  “I’ll always defend you, my sweet red bitch,” he swore. Jarvis dug his fingers into her tangled hair, then forced her to tilt her head and look at him. “McAllister was trying to howl a comparison in his mating and ours. I think he turned out to be a good male. It was their pack leader who smelled outraged. We can’t live in a pack like that.”

  “I never said I wanted to stay there,” she said, barely moving her mouth as she spoke. “No matter where our den is, humans might turn on us just as they might with our den up here.”

  Jarvis shook his head. “Humans know they’re supposed to get along with werewolves. They won’t make a scene in their city when it isn’t politically correct. That’s why they climb the mountains and search for an outlet to release their hatred toward us. They find a den. They start it on fire.”

  “You just made my point for me.” Her smile smelled dangerous.

  Jarvis wasn’t daunted. He put his hand over her clasped hands. “No. Not this time. This time we know of their hatred. They won’t try burning us out a second time because we’ll attack before they can.”