I didn’t have a big wardrobe to shred.
He swallowed hard. “I guess that’s a no. We all have the same basic parts, right?”
Even though him getting undressed didn’t bother me, I turned around and pretended to stretch while he undressed. When I heard the sound of his crumpled T-shirt hit the ground, I shifted in place.
“I can’t believe you can just shift like that. I don’t even drink a glass of water that fast.”
Now in my wolf form, his pine-and-molasses scent was stronger. I swore that if he was a mile away from me, I could smell it. It was unique to him and, unlike when he’d been very nervous, the bitter edge was not there, just sweet, enticing Dean scent. I wished I could bottle it up and keep it with me forever. Using my muzzle, I nudged at his legs. Dean bent down and stroked my fur.
“Damn, you are a beautiful wolf, Jillian. Absolutely stunning. Your eyes turn golden. Did you know that?”
I shook my wolf head. By the second, my wolf was desperate to run with him, to have him near us in his animal form. Another nudge with my muzzle, and he finally got the point. Plus, I had a little something up my sleeve. Something I’d never told anyone about.
I could force a shift in others, either way. I could force another to shift from human to wolf and from wolf to human again. I’d never told another soul, or, you know, communicated it to another soul. No one ever suspected that the outcast could have such power.
Before now, I’d been afraid to use it on anyone else. Truth be told, I’d only ever used it when I was a kid.
Shift.
The command wasn’t the solution we needed. He needed to learn how to shift and shift fast if he was to stay in this pack and be anywhere near me. But as he grew more used to his wolf form, it should make it easier to reach for. So...
With a grunt, Dean fell to his knees, and in moments, he was back to that lean wolf that I’d spotted not so long ago in the woods.
He did it. Well, technically I did it, but I was not telling him that or writing him that after our run, either. It would only smash his confidence.
His wolf was boisterous and playful. It bounced around, smelling everything and pawing at unknown objects like a newborn pup. I supposed in a lot of ways he was a newborn pup.
A sound in the distance caught his attention, making his ears point upward, and before I could react, he was gone in a flash. Sprinting through the trees and below the understory, he bounced in and out of sight. He was a fast one.
But I was faster.
I caught up to him in no time and kicked out my back leg, letting him know I was near. His deep-brown eyes looked at me and then back to the forest as though he was choosing between the two of us. There was no reason to. I would run with him as long as he wanted. Clearly, his wolf had been kept in too long. An extended run would do him some good.
It wasn’t long before we heard more noise, and I knew immediately what it was. A rabbit. My wolf’s favorite food and, if I was being honest, my favorite thing to make soup with. After a good long while on the fire, the meat was lean and tender.
While I was thinking on soup, Dean bolted forward and in seconds came back with the grey rabbit in his mouth, the limp thing dripping with blood.
His eyes danced with pride.
That’s a good one. We’ll cook it up later, unless you want to eat it now.
The thought was to myself, but all of the sudden, Dean, the wolf Dean, dropped the rabbit and stood in front of me, mouth gaping.
I whirled around, thinking he saw something behind me, but the only thing there was the trail to the canyons and some trees with mushrooms growing on their trunks. Nothing to gape about.
What the hell? The thought came, but I didn’t recognize the voice. It wasn’t me and it wasn’t my wolf. I took a few steps back, not understanding why another voice was in my head.
Who is that? How are you talking to me?
This time Dean jumped back as though the air had burned him. His eyes widened while he slowly lay down on his belly.
Jillian, is that you? How is this happening? I don’t…
Gods above, this wasn’t happening. I stumbled backward, hitting my ass on a tree trunk and tumbled before finally getting my legs under me again.
There were only certain wolves who could talk to each other in animal form.
Alphas could speak to their pack members that way and, well, mates could, too. If they were lucky.
Dean was certainly not my alpha, but I refused to give the second notion another thought. Maybe there were other cases—I was anything but an expert on the variations of shifters in other groups. Still, it was freeing to be able to speak to him. I tried it again.
Dean, it’s me. I’m not sure what’s happening, but yeah, it’s Jillian.
He scooted closer until his muzzle was nearly touching mine. Even with the littlest bit of rabbit’s blood on it, I didn’t care.
I could communicate with someone, and honestly, the only person I really had ever wished to talk to. We spent the rest of the night right there, the moon our only source of light, talking to each other about anything and everything and the spaces between. I answered all of his questions and he answered all of mine.
I might just stay a wolf forever.
Chapter Twelve
Dean
Talking to Jillian had been amazing. After all the time together where our communications were so thin, we had this way to “talk.” We’d spent hours lying side by side on the wintery ground, protected from the cold by our fur. She told me something of her history, and I did the same. After a bit, I almost forgot we weren’t speaking aloud because it came so naturally. The only time she seemed to balk was when I asked one question in particular.
Can all shifters speak to one another this way? It must make her life much easier with her lack of vocal speech and limited writing skills. Skills I planned to double my efforts to help her with.
No. Not everyone.
When no more followed, I let the subject drop because there were so many more things I wanted to learn, but I would bring it up again. In fact, I might ask others about it if I ever got a work assignment. We’d continued to talk until Jillian suggested we go home and make dinner. She tossed her beautiful muzzle toward my kill and then stood and trotted back toward the cabin. The hovel I swore I’d replace with a nice house at the very first opportunity. I wasn’t sure if Jillian had feelings for me the way I did for her. I’d never met anyone like her, the puppy love experiences so pale in comparison. I understood now that there were many people we might find attractive or interesting, but if I’d ended up with one of them, I’d have missed out on the fire kindling in my heart for this extraordinary woman.
Dinner was late that night because the rabbit had to cook for quite a while, but as we sat opposite one another at the table, and I spooned the hearty, rich broth, flavored with herbs, the bits of meat and vegetables incredibly delicious, my pride threatened to burst right from my chest. I’d provided food for our table.
That’s right. Me. Dean, the college student who had never so much as cooked a meal, had hunted meat and brought it to feed my —-I mean, this woman.
Mate. My mind resounded with the word, as if someone else said it inside me. A lot like the conversations we’d had in the forest but a little different. I guess my thoughts were also changing, becoming more vivid and louder. Especially on this topic—once I was in love with love.
Now, I had a focus.
But when we finished our meal, and not a trace remained, my pride also evaporated with it. If I wanted to prove to Jillian that I was the wolf for her, I’d need to do better. Although she hadn’t said so in so many words—thoughts?—I recognized that she’d helped me to shift in some way. I gladly accepted her assistance but also understood until I managed to make those changes independently, I would not be worthy of her. If I ever was. Jillian lived in this awful place yet managed to make it a home.
I’d called it a hovel, and it was, but I could tell she’d impro
ved it from something much worse. The gaps between the old logs were filled with kind of an adobe sort of material. Mud and straw and a smattering of herbs as well that, although they were dry, still added a fragrance to the air within. The floor was of boards, golden enough to show they had recently been sanded and oiled. The windows, though cracked, gleamed with cleanliness. Her bed was not much more than the pallet I slept on but still looked inviting.
I had to admit that element might be as much because of its occupant as the worn but colorful quilt laid over it. What would it be like to sleep with her curled in my arms?
My quiet lady leaned over the table toward me, seeking my attention. I offered her a smile and an apologetic shrug. She reached for my bowl, and I stood and helped her clear the table and clean up. I took the bucket to the stream to fill for washing the dishes and drinking as well. Once everything was put neatly away, we retired to our beds, and I lay on my side, watching her in the glow of the low fire, until exhaustion from our adventures drove me into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I woke deep in the night, and my eyes immediately sought her again. The fire had died back to coals, but it wasn’t so dark I didn’t notice that her bed was empty, the quilt smooth and her shoes, always beside the mattress, gone. Her hoodie was also missing from the nail by the front door. I must have been very deeply asleep that I didn’t hear her moving around, but she probably was answering nature’s call and would be right back.
Plumbing...when I built the new home, it would have so much plumbing. As many bathrooms as I could fit and a kitchen with not one but two sinks. Maybe a pool. I’d taken up fetching the water for our needs, and it wasn’t far at all, but indoor facilities I’d once taken for granted now seemed like nearly unattainable luxuries. I had noticed in my trips to the pack compound that the others seemed to have not only water but satellite dishes. Again, I wondered why Jillian lived way out here alone.
I would ask that the next time we were wolves together, which I wanted to be soon. Would she have to help me again? I hoped not. But I’d accept her assistance if necessary. “Talking” to her was worth any blow to my male pride.
I’d never have thought of myself as macho or prideful. Did falling in love affect all guys this way? Make them ready to throw themselves in front of an oncoming freight train or meteor plummeting from the sky to protect their ladies?
As I’d lain here thinking, time had passed. Since Jillian did not have a clock, I couldn’t be specific, but in my time here, I’d begun to have a better sense of “when” in the day it was. And how many minutes or hours went by while I waited for Jillian to return from her daily work. But she’d been away at least an hour, far too long to be using the outhouse.
Worried, I tossed back my covers and dressed quickly. Those woods were full of all kinds of dangers. Not that I’d seen any in particular, but we weren’t the only wolves, I felt sure, and the regular kind might not care that she was somewhat a kindred spirit. And I’d heard bands of coyotes howling. Snakes, bobcats, possibly even mountain lions. Anything might await a woman alone among the trees.
A man alone, too, but I couldn’t think about that or I’d lose my nerve. Jillian was out there somewhere alone. And she hadn’t told me she was going for some reason. My mind swam with possibilities. Had someone from the pack summoned her? And for what purpose late in the night?
I donned my shoes and the sweatshirt I’d acquired and set out to find her. I followed the path we’d run earlier and then turned onto another and another, pausing often to listen, completely lost within a short time but not caring. I needed to find her. How far away had she gone? By chance, I crossed the trail we took when we went to the compound. I used the term loosely, since there were not walls or anything keeping the others all together, but so far as I could tell, every other pack member lived close to one another, in much nicer homes than ours.
The eastern sky was lightening when I saw her bent over studying something on the ground. “Jillian!”
She jumped and fell forward on her knees. Rushing forward, I brushed her off and studied her. The faint light of dawn showed an expression I couldn’t read.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“What are you doing out here all by yourself all night? I’ve been worried sick. Anything could have happened to you. Wild animals might have eaten you, a snake could have bitten you, a stranger kidnapped you...what were you thinking?” I took her arm in one hand and her basket of plant materials in the other and towed her toward home. “It’s cold out here, too. You must be chilled through. And then you’ll have to go work for the pack in a couple of hours with no rest…”
My lecture went on for some time, and, to her credit, Jillian never pointed out that unlike me, at the approach of danger, she could shift to a wolf in seconds, the only harm done to her clothing. But still, there were many shifters around, apparently, and no reason to think her wolf was the strongest and fastest in the forest.
I wanted to hunt for us, but more than that, I wanted to protect her. More than anything.
Chapter Thirteen
Jillian
Dean had asked me a pointed question, but I couldn’t bring myself to give him any more than a generic answer. Yes, there were only specific people who could speak to each other mentally in their wolf forms.
Those people were mates.
Mate.
I didn’t remember how the rule got into my head. Either it was told to me as a child, or I’d just assumed, given my circumstances, it was true.
Either way, my life didn’t allow for a mate.
And if there was one, I wouldn’t be surprised if he rejected me. That was kind of the story of my existence.
So I did what any girl would do when faced with a mate dilemma...I gave the entire thing, including Dean, the cold shoulder. It was so easy to bestow the ice princess treatment on the rest of the pack, but with Dean, it was the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
He was always finding ways to touch me or accidentally brush my hand here and there.
Every touch seemed to light me on fire.
I needed time to think.
My eyes were barely open when I got up before the sun, and it was already dark by the time I got back. It left little time for conversation or for anything else.
Like kissing. Gods above, I’d never thought about kissing as much as I did lately. I had dreams of it. The thoughts distracted me from my work. I couldn’t eat, barely slept, all because I needed this male to touch me.
Then again, it seemed like asking him to touch a venomous animal. Like the poison that was my place in the pack would somehow pass onto him.
I didn’t want that for him.
He deserved to be a happy shifter with someone who could, you know, read, write, and be a part of the pack meetings and parties and gatherings.
He deserved a life that I couldn’t give him.
There was only one person who would give me the time I needed to suffer through this without judgment.
She lived out in the woods, somewhat cast out like me, but more for her half-witch status than anything else. She was the one who taught me to forage for myself. Her cabin was smaller than mine, if possible, but somehow, when I was there, it felt like a mansion.
Not that I’d ever seen a mansion.
It was the kind of place where you didn’t have to knock and something was always brewing on the stove.
I knocked four times before entering anyway, simply so she would know it was me. It was my special signal.
Some people in the pack secretly came to her with requests. Make them a concoction to help them have a baby. Make their mate nicer. And some requests not so innocent.
“Hello, Jillian, my dear. I’ve just pulled some chamomile-and-lavender scones from the oven. Come in. I’ve brewed tea as well.”
I sat at her wobbly round table, crafted of wood she found in the forest. The flowery scents of chamomile and lavender permeated the air and instantly made me somehow fee
l lighter, though Dean and all that came along with knowing him, and speaking to him as a wolf still weighed on me. Her home was straight out of a storybook I’d found in the discard heap and treasured. The cottage had a rounded, thatched roof and all kinds of herbs hanging from the rafters and drying on racks in every nook and cranny. She wasn’t the type to clean up before company and expected you to pick up her knitting or her cat if you wanted to sit on the sofa.
“Here you go.” She sat down across from me after serving us both tea and putting a dollop of honey in each cup. A basket of piping-hot scones sat in the middle of the table, but I waited until she reached for one before helping myself.
Magda was the kind of person who was everyone’s mother despite her semi-isolation.
Her nurturing ways discriminated against no one.
“I know you won’t tell me what’s on your mind, but I think I already know. You’ve been blushing since the moment you got here, and the fire in the hearth is simply not that hot tonight. Plus, you scent like passion.”
Dear gods, if I wasn’t blushing before, I certainly am now.
I clanked the teacup onto the mismatched saucer, proving her point even further.
“Here. I’m getting the notebook for this one. Give me all the details you can,” she said.
There wasn’t much, and by the time I finished scribbling my thoughts to her, the scones had gone cold and so had my tea.
Magda smiled the entire time she read my words. That paper would be in the fire as soon as she finished. No way in hell I was taking the chance of someone finding it.
“Oh, my. This Dean is something, huh? And your wolf can speak to his and his to you?”
I nodded and almost gave myself a headache.
“I’m not going to say the words but you know what this means, right? Well done, girl. You’ve found your mate.”
I stopped chewing on my scone, deadpanning her.
Rejected by Fate: A Mated in Silence Novel Page 5