WithHerCraving

by Lorie O'Clare

  “Do you mean like this?” Katrin looked up at the trees.

  When Jarvis heard a loud crackling sound he leaped in front of Katrin and growled protectively. Jaeger had been hunched down inside the burned-out shell of a den and leaped to his feet, his expression instantly wild. When the cracking sound became louder and Jarvis got a whiff of fresh bark just torn from the wood, he stepped to the side and gave Katrin a hard stare. She wasn’t looking at him, or at the trees that were thick around the clearing. Instead she seemed intent on staring at her hands, which were clasped on her legs.

  When he looked around them once again, noticing his littermate doing the same, Jarvis waited in silence to see which tree would topple to the ground. Katrin was making a point. He smelled the truth there. What he didn’t smell was a single emotion coming off her at the moment. She’d been sad a moment ago but now there wasn’t a shred of the thick smell lingering in the air. He picked up on his own reaction. But only because she was ripping large branches from a tree and sending them toppling to the ground with her mind. It shocked the fucking crap out of him.

  He would also have to point out to his thickheaded and high-spirited little Cariboo that knocking trees to the ground would only help them if the humans attacking just happened to be standing in the right place at the right moment. Unless she expected him to herd the humans over an X marked on the ground, put there just in case they were attacked, all this proved was that she was definitely half Malta werewolf.

  There was no point in snarling it out with her until her tree fell. Jarvis glanced across the meadow at his littermate. He didn’t smell Jaeger from where he stood but he’d bet his hide the male would howl the same argument that Jarvis would over this.

  Glancing up again at the trees, Jarvis waited for part or all of a tree to clamor to the ground. None of them did. Instead a large branch ripped free from the side of an old tree standing next to a fat juniper. It flew through the air with so much energy, as if it had suddenly learned to fly and embraced the gift with a fierce and animated excitement. Jarvis swore he heard it whistle in the air as it raced between him and his littermate. The branch then crashed at the far end of the mountain.

  Any leaves that had once been on the branch had been stripped from it during its short but high-speed journey. The branch stuck out of the ground like a spear, its warbled and crooked end reminding him of arthritic claws.

  Jaeger let out a low whistle. “Damn. I didn’t know she did parlor tricks.”

  Jarvis snarled, curling his lip at his littermate. He needed to have a serious discussion with his mate. Obviously she’d been practicing, unless possibly once unleashed this Malta werewolf side of her began escalating. Either way, Katrin had to somehow contain it. If he needed to howl over the necessity of suppressing her tree-throwing ability, Jarvis sure as hell didn’t need his littermate snarling jokes in the background.

  Jarvis wasn’t able to tell if Jaeger smiled or not. His littermate ducked his head and returned to whatever the fuck he had been doing before Katrin decided to give them a show.

  Katrin’s blue eyes had darkened so that they were almost the shade of violet when she twisted her neck to look up at him. She smelled of more than anger now. Silently, she challenged him. For a moment he was stumped. She was attacking, but not physically. His little female was attacking for control over this new power of hers. It was new territory to him and one he needed to fight his way through, but with caution.

  “No, I don’t mean that we defend ourselves like that.” His voice was too soft, too gentle, as he battled to restrain his temper. “I meant with tooth and claw. We know they might come so we’ll be ready to attack the way we’ve always fought, the way our sires fought and their sires before them for thousands of years. It will also be the way our cubs fight after we’re gone.”

  Katrin raised one eyebrow. “So you’re saying we’ll fight the Cariboo way and not the Malta way.”

  “We’ll fight the honorable way,” he stressed, no longer able to contain his frustration. How did she not understand that the world hated Malta werewolves?

  “Malta werewolves aren’t honorable?” she retorted, standing and facing him. Silver streaks laced her incredibly dark blue eyes. She fisted her hands on her hips and glared up at him as her tangled hair flew around her, making her look erotically wild.

  Jarvis hesitated, glaring at her. “You aren’t thinking clearly,” he grumbled, clenching his teeth so he wouldn’t start howling at her. Fucking tail! Of course Malta werewolves weren’t honorable! That’s why everyone on the planet had tried euthanizing them. It was the only time in werewolf history where genocide had been used and had smelled honorable and justified.

  “Go to hell, Jarvis,” she screamed then stormed off into the trees.

  “Katrin!” he barked.

  She ignored him. Jarvis spewed out expletives as he watched his female leave a trail of anger when she marched away from him.

  “Handled that well,” Jaeger muttered when Jarvis walked over to his littermate.

  Jarvis saw Katrin through the trees. It appeared she’d stopped by the waterfall. “She started howling nonsense,” he said tightly. “Did you hear her demand to know if I believed Malta werewolves had honor? Fucking tail! Their breed altered themselves so that their offspring were whelped with strange powers.” He pointed at the branch still sticking out of the ground. “Like that,” he snarled. “Even their own kind who weren’t altered wanted their breed wiped out.”

  “So it’s howled.” Jaeger squatted on his haunches and his hands were covered with dirt and debris from their burnt den.

  “So it’s howled?” Jarvis shook his head, not grasping what his littermate was saying any more than he understood what the fuck he was doing. “Once she’s calmed down we’ll work our way through this. It’s not like I haven’t come to terms with her breeding,” he explained, deciding voicing his thoughts to someone who wouldn’t fly into a rage, or turn branches into spears, might help clear his head. “Katrin is my mate. I love her. We’ll run and hunt, have cubs, grow old together.”

  It was a good thought and one that helped cool his temper as he imagined what their cubs might look like. Letting his thoughts drift to cold nights in their warm den, working to make those cubs, relaxed him even further.

  “Katrin is who she is.”

  “Yup,” Jaeger agreed.

  “She didn’t ask to be only half Cariboo.” Jarvis admitted to himself that he hadn’t handled their conversation that well. But damn it, this wasn’t a conversation he had ever thought he would have. Glancing over to where Katrin was, he knew he would have to take care with the next round. Before she flew into another rage he would have to let her see his mind, show her he loved her. “She’ll come around,” he murmured. Then with conviction, because it was true, he added, “Katrin is still trying to understand who she is.”

  Jaeger stood. He held something in his hands. It was covered in mud, with wood shavings stuck to it. “How do we know what happened to that pack? And why do we care? All you need to sniff out is how honorable that female is,” he said and pointed in Katrin’s direction. “I need to go. I should be back in a few days.”

  “What?” Jarvis gave himself a mental shake. His anger had simmered inside him. He wasn’t sure if his female was through howling like a crazy werewolf. Now his littermate was telling him he was leaving right after they’d reached their old den? “What the fuck are you howling about?”

  Jaeger held up whatever was in his hands. “This,” he said, as if that would make sense out of things.

  Jarvis ran his hand over his face and instinctively looked toward Katrin again. For a moment he didn’t see her and leaned away from his littermate, sniffing the air. Then he spotted her just as she pulled off her shirt. Auburn hair tumbled down her slender, arched back.

  If she thought she would run back down the mountain…

  Katrin bent over and again disappeared from Jarvis’ line of vision. When he took several steps toward her, l
eaving his littermate and whatever nonsense he was babbling about, Jarvis saw Katrin wasn’t changing. She walked into the pool of water surrounding the waterfall. His groin instantly ached knowing how that impact of icy cold mountain water would feel against her human flesh.

  “Jarvis!” Jaeger demanded.

  Jarvis spun around. “You aren’t leaving,” he informed his littermate, pointing a finger at Jaeger and starting toward his female at the same time. “Fucking tail! My mate needs my attention. If this bothers you then you and I can fight about it later. Right now, I’m going to Katrin and you’re staying right where you are.”

  “Pull your God damn tail out of your ass,” Jaeger snarled. “I’m running back down the mountain. I ran up here with you and helped haul supplies needed to get us started living up here again. A few days alone with your new mate will hopefully allow the two of you to at least smell mated, and not pissed off at each other. It stinks. I told you I would return and I will. But there are matters to take care of. Be a smart werewolf and quit worrying about me. Take care of her,” he stated, and pointed over Jarvis’ shoulder toward Katrin.

  “A few days alone would definitely do both of us some good,” Jarvis agreed, and hoped he’d be able to soothe Katrin’s hackles sooner, and not later. He looked forward to making up, then seeing how many ways he’d make her come. “But what matters do you have to take care of?”

  “This.” Jaeger opened the box.

  Jarvis gawked at all of the cash inside. “Where did you get that?”

  “I had hoped it would still be here,” Jaeger whispered, sounding almost reverent.

  Jarvis stared at him, then at all of the money. “Where did that come from?” he asked again. It smelled stale and musty.

  “It was years ago,” Jaeger began. “Mom told our sire that the money our litter was given from time to time, whenever our sire did some job that paid in cash instead of fresh kill, was useless. She told him she would bury it. Mom said maybe someday it would be useful.”

  “How come I never knew about this?”

  Jarvis had never had much use for human money, any more than their sire had. The only time had been when living in a pack where humans lived also. Humans loved money more than they did each other. It made the crinkled pieces of paper stink, as if all of those bile emotions toward the currency were saturated in it. The box of money didn’t smell though. Maybe being buried in the earth for so many years had cleansed it. Not that Jarvis thought that put more stock in it. All of the cash in the box his littermate held, and it did look like a lot of money, wouldn’t raise the walls of their new den or enable them to hunt their kill any better.

  “I wasn’t supposed to know about it. I heard our sire and mother talking about it one night when we were supposed to be asleep. Honestly, I thought it wouldn’t be here. Mom hadn’t smelled like she was lying and there hadn’t been humor in her words either.”

  “Okay. Damn.” Jarvis shook his head but easily conceded. “You found it. This is now your money.”

  “It’s our money. Money that belongs to our litter.” Jaeger put the box in the bag he’d hauled up the mountain. “I’m heading down for supplies. I think there should be enough money here to buy a trailer, or some way to haul everything back up the mountain.”

  Jaeger would be gone longer than a few days if he planned on driving back up the mountain. Jarvis nodded once and returned his attention to Katrin.

  “Go tell her you’re going down the mountain. Find out how to contact her littermates.” Mentioning them to Katrin had been the only time since they’d been up here that she’d smelled happy. “Maybe spend some of it to buy her some dresses. Mom had always been thrilled when our sire brought her a new dress.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had to be said. She was getting damn good at using her gift. Many scenes from her running as a cub made sense now.

  Katrin stared at the two fires burning, one on either side of her. She was proud of herself. No amount of muscle added would have allowed her to have such beautiful fires burning in such short time. She had made both of them by willing branches into two piles. Now she wouldn’t freeze in the water.

  It had been as simple as cubs’ play. Katrin had focused on branches lying nearby on the ground and had willed them where she wanted the two fires to be. When she’d had enough wood, she’d brought two sticks together in the air in front of her. Then Katrin had made them rub against each other faster and faster, until a flame ignited. She’d laughed and done a little dance over her success once the fires were going. Jarvis hadn’t seemed to notice but instead had been intent on grumbling over something with his littermate.

  Malta werewolves had a gift, one that should be revered and not scorned. It wasn’t magic, but simply a part of her mind and her senses she hadn’t explored before. If only she could get Jarvis to see it that way. Instead, he hung on to previously conceived odors howled by werewolves neither of them would ever know.

  Katrin admitted she hadn’t howled about being Malta werewolf very well to Jarvis. She had known it was a subject the two of them would eventually have to battle out. There had been no avoiding it. Jarvis hadn’t known she was half Malta when he’d first sniffed her out. Katrin hadn’t known her sire’s blood flowed this powerfully through her veins.

  “Thank you, sire,” she whispered, and watched bright yellow and orange flames do a wicked dance over the twisted branches beneath them.

  Maybe if she preached to the flames, growled her thoughts and new understanding out loud, she’d be able to make sense of them and help Jarvis accept her gift too. Katrin glanced toward Jarvis and Jaeger. She was too far away to smell them. Were they fighting about her?

  “I just turned a branch into a spear and sent it flying across the meadow,” she declared to herself. “Which was amazing!”

  Jarvis would see how incredible her gift was. And practical. Fucking tail, she’d just built two fires without raising a paw. That should impress anyone.

  The same ignorant odor had existed around Malta werewolves when she’d been a cub. Katrin just hadn’t known about it. Her sire and mother raised all three of their cubs to believe they would grow up and run however they chose. At least that was how Katrin had thought she’d been raised. She hadn’t thought Cariboo were any different than Malta werewolves. Anything her sire had done had always been perfect. Katrin had never given a thought to him behaving a certain way because of his breed. Nor had her sire or mom ever pointed out that when they ran this way it was Cariboo and that way was Malta.

  Now, thinking back to when she’d been a cub, there were times she remembered that were proof her sire had used his gift and simply not let his cubs know. There had been a shed built overnight, snow cleared unbelievably quickly after blizzards, all due to her sire’s gift. It had to be true. Katrin hadn’t ever sniffed out deception because she’d never questioned the act. She’d been too wrapped up in being a cub.

  Her sire had passed this gift on to his cubs. At least Katrin guessed her two littermates had the gift as well. They looked a lot more like Malta werewolves than she did. Katrin hoped they did. Leisa and Magda had left her in a pack she didn’t know, which had terrified her. But they had taken off running across the country, and across the border into a new country none of them knew a lot about. Running with the gift would give them all the protection they needed.

  Katrin moved between the trees, watching Jarvis. She couldn’t sniff him or Jaeger out, especially now with wood burning and the smoke making it harder to tell what emotions were at play between the two males. They looked as if they were snarling at each other. It made her sick that it might be over her.

  “No,” she said out loud when the smell of her curiosity was suddenly stronger than the wood burning in the two fires.

  She was tending to practical tasks always performed after a really long run in their fur. Katrin had washed her clothes in the cold mountain water underneath the waterfall. They now all hung on sticks she’d stabbed in the ground near t
he fire to dry. She had gotten into the water to rinse off her flesh. Although she was cold, there were things to do. Her mother had never let her or her littermates change into their fur to be warmer after a run when they’d returned with supplies. Those were working runs and her mother howled that the cold air would make them work faster. She hadn’t had the advantage of flames on either side of her keeping her warm against the frigid mountain air as a cub either. Katrin would tend to her tasks and quit thinking about Jarvis.

  She dragged a cauldron and old jugs that she’d spotted at the edge of the trees—utensils very likely used by Jarvis’ litter while he was growing up—over to the fire. Katrin warmed some of the ice-cold water and with the jugs would be able to wash her hair. All sensible litters cleaned themselves and the clothes that had been twisted around them after a hard run. Her mama had made Katrin and her littermates follow the ritual after each run. It was something she would someday teach her own cubs.

  “My own cubs,” she whispered, and a quickening deep inside her swelled into desire. The flames in both fires grew larger and swayed seductively as if they knew her thoughts. “See that I’m normal,” she said, directing her comment toward Jarvis, who didn’t hear her. “See that I’m exactly how I’m supposed to be.”

  Malta werewolves were feared because they were different. As Katrin stared past the trees at Jarvis, she understood how her breed might have abused that difference. Just now, as she studied her mate’s broad shoulders and tall build, she had ached to alter his thinking so he would sniff out the truth as she did.

  That would have been wrong. The air around her suddenly reeked of the dishonor she had just allowed into her thoughts. Katrin had manipulated the trees. But manipulating someone else’s mind, coercing their thoughts so they ran the same way hers did, might possibly be the most dishonorable thing ever. Is that what had happened to the werewolves on Malta?