by Lizzy Ford
Is this my fate? I’ve been plagued by the question since my father followed in his father’s footsteps. In fact, no Kingmaker to date has died a peaceful death. My predecessors are always murdered, usually quite horrifically, by the very creatures we so dutifully try to help and protect by choosing sound, worthy leaders.
I don’t want to be here. Whenever I think about how the werewolf I’m meeting tonight might’ve killed my father, my hatred for every supernatural in existence, excluding my late mother, grows exponentially. If my father were here, I could talk this through with him to make sure it’s what I should be doing.
The thought of him plunges me into despair. Does pain like this ever end? Will I ever wake up not expecting to smell him cooking waffles?
How can I recall rules and protocols, or choose a worthy successor, when I can’t think straight? Or figure out how my father organized his damn library. He had a system – but I don’t know what it is. Every time I try to sort through the books, I start crying, and I can’t stop until I leave his favorite spot in the house. I made it for a full hour today before the dust bunnies and memories took their toll.
I got nowhere. No closer to his killer, no closer into discovering what exactly the supernaturals meant by my markings foretelling of a problem, no clearer on how I’m supposed to read the book in my backpack so I can manipulate or defend myself against the predators.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy,” I whisper. “I’m trying not to fail you, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Even if the supernaturals can’t explain what my duty is, this meeting is part of the process. That much I remember from when I was young. My father lived with each of the three clans competing for the leadership role. He took a leave of absence from his very human job as an accountant for a big box retailer, the only year when he spent more time with supernaturals than he did me.
Whatever I’m supposed to be doing or learning, this is part of it, however little I look forward to it tonight.
I draw a deep breath and straighten. My makeup is smeared. The curtain of evening, along with the layer of clouds and little-to-no lighting here at the isolated spot the werewolf chose, means no one can see my face anyway. I definitely don’t care what the sexy werewolf thinks of me, not when he’s one of the three primary suspects in my father’s murder.
Climbing out of the car, I close the door and examine my surroundings briefly. Forest hugs the road and six car parking lot beside a quiet boat dock jutting into a dark lake. It’s exactly the kind of place I can see a werewolf. The sounds of nature are everywhere, and we’re on the opposite side of the lake from the campgrounds where the people are.
The air is fresh, and I suck in a deep breath. It helps clear my head, though nothing can drive away the ache deep inside me or my doubt about whether or not I’m really cut out for the job.
“You ready for this?”
I jump and whirl.
The werewolf’s approach is silent. He’s halfway between me and the forest, his features shrouded with darkness.
“Yep,” I lie.
“Follow me.”
His step, even across gravel, is silent, and he melts into the trees like he’s a part of the forest. I possess none of his grace whatsoever. My feet crunch across the narrow road and I struggle to navigate the dark forest without being smacked by tree branches or tripped by roots and bushes.
Finally, I fight my way to a clearing half the size of a football field. He’s standing in the center, and I cross to him then stop several feet away.
A sliver of moonlight pierces the fast-moving clouds, and I start to laugh.
“You just walk around the forest naked?” I ask. My eyes explore his body in the brief moonlight, from his muscular chest sprinkled with hair, huge biceps and trim waist and hips to the long, thick cock dangling between muscular thighs. My succubus blood warms at the sight of his length and girth. Even when he’s not aroused, he’s seriously well hung.
“Yeah,” he says. “Home, too.”
Is he teasing? Everything he says is in a low growl. It’s hard to gauge his meaning with his gravelly tone. I stare at his dick, a flush of warmth chasing away the evening chill.
“You’ve been crying.”
My burgeoning desire turns to embarrassment. “It’s just allergies,” I reply dismissively. Turning away, I wipe the mascara from beneath my eyes as I make a show of going to a tree to stash my backpack.
“You don’t lie to your alpha.”
I hear the warning this time. “Good thing you’re not my alpha,” I quip. I return to the clearing.
“I am for this week.”
“Oh, and you’re going to teach me to respect authority?” I fold my arms across my chest. Leaning my head back, I gaze up at him, unable to see his eyes in the dark. He’s radiating heat, and his is the earthy scent I noticed in the alley yesterday. A combination of forest and rain, underscored by a dark, faint musk all his own.
“Authority?” he snorted. “You’ll understand by morning. If you want to survive every bone in your body snapping and reforming into the shape of a wolf, you’ll listen to me.”
I’m not about to admit he has a point. It’s not like you can read about how to shapeshift into a wolf online, and the leader of all the packs in the western part of the country is probably going to know a thing or two about how to do it right the first time around.
He takes two steps and enters my personal space. His long fingers reach for my belt and begin to unfasten it. I’m a little surprised at how forward he is.
“Dude.” I say and brush his hands away.
“You want to ruin your clothes?”
I shake my head.
“Your daddy didn’t teach you much about us, did he?” he asks and stretches for my belt again. “I won’t hurt you.”
“He taught me everything I need to know.” I watch his muscles move in what light makes it through the clouds, fascinated despite knowing what he is.
“Like what?” He tugs my belt free and tosses it then lifts the edges of my shirt.
With some misgivings, I go with it and lift my arms. “That you would kill your own mother if she got in her way. Supernaturals are a plague, one the Kingmaker’s have to keep in check by ensuring you don’t destroy one another or the human population.”
His hands drop, and I feel his intent gaze on me. In my bra, I shiver despite his heat and nearness. “That’s what he taught you?” he sounds genuinely puzzled.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Which is why it’s no surprise one of you animals killed him.”
“Animals,” he repeats quietly. His palms brush my cheeks, and he swipes a thumb beneath my eye in a movement a little too intimate for me. As if he’s capable of understanding sorrow and what I’m going through. My father said supernaturals don’t have real emotions. “I didn’t kill your father, Leslie.”
“As if you’d tell me if you did.”
“You’re part of my pack as of tonight. I don’t lie to my own.”
“But you’d tell your own if you murdered her father?”
“Yep. And it’d be with cause. Chief among my pet peeves: disloyalty. Betrayal. Hurting another of our kind.” His hands moved down my neck lightly and my arms, stirring more of my heated blood. “I’ll fuck you up for that and kill you if I have to.”
He slides his thumbs between my skin and leggings and underwear and then begins to slide them off. My face is warm. Not because I’ve never been with a stranger – I’ve had too many one-night stands to remember – but because there’s some really weird tension playing between us. It’s got to be the supernatural magic, the ability to shift and my ability to repel whatever affect he normally has on others.
“Very nice,” he murmurs, his palms skimming my thighs as he pushes my clothes off. “But you’re not a runner.”
“Are you calling me fat?” I snap.
He laughs. “It’s an observation. Your muscle tone is from … what? Weights?”
“Pilates.”
“Most wolves are runners. Good ones, too.”
I shove off my boots with my feet then step out of the leggings. “Does it matter?”
“Not if you’re only here for a week. But wolves are hunted and hunters. We tend to need to run a lot.” He sounds like he’s laughing at me.
I don’t get the joke.
He stands, palms grazing my skin as he does, and moves closer to me.
Something about being naked with my father’s potential killer just doesn’t sit right. “Do you swear you didn’t kill my father?” I ask in a hushed voice.
“You swear you’ll trust me to survive the week?”
It’s not a question I’m expecting. “You said I’d be safe with the necklace and my natural immunity to your powers.”
“I said we wouldn’t kill you. There’s a lot more danger in our world than the three candidates,” he replies. “But what you’ll soon figure out: if you’re not in a pack, you’re in danger. If you can’t trust the person you’re running with, you’ll be dead by morning. These trials are going to test your limits in every way, Leslie. The three of us will protect and guide you, if you let us.” He leans forward, his huge dick brushing my thigh as he reaches around me to unfasten my bra. “You’re an adrenaline junkie. If you don’t trust the parachute to open, the bungee cord to catch you, the brakes on the race car, you won’t survive.”
I’m not afraid – not one bit. Even the talk of my bones breaking doesn’t sound real yet. If anything, I’m eager to try my hand at something so unlike what anyone else has ever done, I’ll have bragging rights for the rest of my life.
I also need the distraction and right now, not one thought is able to leave how incredible the wolf’s body is.
His hands slide down my back and go to my waist. Lightly pressed to me, I can feel the restrained power of his form. I don’t want to be attracted or curious or interested. I don’t want to notice his earthy scent or fantasize about his hands skating over my skin before his dick slides into me.
“I’ll trust you, if you answer my question,” I decide.
“Easy. I swear I didn’t kill your father.”
“Do you know who did?”
“That question I cannot answer.” He tugs my bra free and drops it.
I shiver once more, and I’m not sure if it’s the evening chill or the flush of desire that hits me when my sensitive nipples brush the sparse hair of his chest.
“I promise, by the end of your trials, you’ll know the answer,” he replies.
“Why are you calling this my trial?” I ask. “You’re the one on trial!”
“You’ll figure that out, too. But right now, I feel the moon calling to me.” His voice grows lower, deeper. “Can you feel it?”
I’m about to ask what he’s talking about. He draws me into his body, and this time, I can identify the strange charge in the air. It moves through him into me, and I gasp as the sensation sears through me from head to toe.
He steadies me, one hand at the small of my back as he presses me to him. “Easy. Don’t fight it. Your primal self is awakening. It’s a mix of intuition and the instinct for survival. We call it our inner wolf, but it’s part of every person. We’re better able to access ours.”
I’m at once overwhelmed and confused, filled with an adrenaline high unlike any I’ve ever experienced and simultaneously distracted by everything. His rich scent intoxicates me, makes me want to rub my face against his chest, while the soft night breeze feels like a gale force against my sensitive skin. I’ve tried drugs before, and all I can think of is how this is like a combination of all of them. Heightened senses, instincts replacing reason, and a strange calm as if I belong here amidst the night and forest, where I can unleash the pain and fury and sorrow that’s defined my life since my father died.
I can see his face now with the sharpness of daylight, and he’s watching me with predatory quiet.
“What … is this?” I ask, fingernails digging into his chest as I try to right the world that’s quickly becoming too much for me to handle. Drugs and alcohol and adrenaline put me out of control, but not this fast and not in a way where I can feel myself sliding. Usually, I’m okay one minute then high and happy the next. But right now, I feel like I’m slipping away, out of this world. “I can’t breathe!”
“Yes, you can.” He wraps his other arm around me. “You can breathe. You can smell. You can see. You can hear with the sense of an animal. Close your eyes and focus on one sense first.”
I’m pushing at him instead.
“Leslie.” He takes my chin and forces me to look at him. His whiskey colored eyes almost glow in the night. “Trust me. Remember?”
I’m close to panicking.
“Your senses awaken first before you change. Close your eyes.”
They snap shut, and I cling to him. He’s warm and solid, a buffer against the unnatural transformation occurring inside me. An owl hoots from the forest, and I know – without thinking – it’s exactly five hundred feet away, ten feet in the air. Not too far off is a predator that smells of wet fur, its earthy burrow and … feline. A mountain lion. The sound of a fish flopping in the lake, of a squirrel burying its bounty, of moss scraping the underside of a newborn fawn’s belly, of music from a human party going on half a mile down the river … the crisp sounds I’d never hear as a human are everywhere. Crickets and toads are a symphony and the air laced with too many scents for me to take in at once.
Above it all, I can hear his heartbeat. I press my cheek to his chest, unusually fascinated by the sensation of smooth skin beneath rough patches of hair. He smells of the cotton shirt he wore, the shower he took this morning, of me, for the skin-skin contact leaves traces of my own scent on him and of course, of the masculine scent I want to roll around in until I’m enrobed in it.
My tongue flickers out to taste his skin and I dwell on the flavor, unable to pinpoint what exactly it is I taste except I could spend hours thinking about it. A little salt, rain, a fleck of musk or earth or something.
I nuzzle him, unable to recall when I’d last felt so alive. His roughened hands are huge and broad, and I shift to feel their slightest movement before pressing my hips to his. Whether it’s my newfound awareness, the sensuality of an animal, or my grandmother’s succubus blood, I’m suddenly far more interested in touching him and him touching me than I am the forest. I want to know how much better sex is with all my senses awake.
“Not yet,” he whispers and nuzzles my neck. He nips me, and I gasp once more, my eyes opening.
I can see in the dark. I’m almost fevered with need, except I don’t know what I yearn for. Lust, certainly, but there’s more. The sudden need to run, the surge of emotions that I’ve been tightly controlling since my father’s death, the confusing desire to do … something. I don’t know what except it’s calling to me now that the barriers between me and my emotions, and my emotions and the world, are dropping rapidly.
“Look at me,” he directs and lifts my chin. He slides his finger into my mouth. Like his scent, his flavor is unique, a combination of earthiness and man, and I suck, more interested in deciphering his flavor than trying to be sexy. “If you get lost, follow my scent.”
I release his finger, and he withdraws it.
“You’re going to be overwhelmed out there. Trust your instincts over your human mind. Your inner wolf will guide you. Avoid people and other predators. You won’t know how to handle them.”
I’m listening to him but not really hearing his words. His eyes are beautiful in the night, his strong features chiseled and heavy yet still handsome.
And then I smell it, the only scent capable of arresting my attention from experiencing him. Twisting in his grip, I face the direction from which it came.
“What is it?” I whisper and start towards it.
“No,” he says and tightens his grip around me.
I rest back against him briefly, aware of his erection starting to grow against my ass, of the scent of his arousa
l and mine in the air around us.
“That’s blood,” he explains. “You won’t know how to kill either.”
“It smells like … ice cream,” I say, puzzled.
He chuckles and rests his cheek against mine. “Stay focused on me. We’re going to run together.”
I almost ask him how he’s so in control when I’m ready to crawl out of my skin, to drop to the ground and roll around until I smell of grass then dash into the forest to chase the world’s loudest owl. A sense of exhilaration descends over me at the prospect of freedom from everything, but it’s tempered by the bubbling emotions that have been tormenting me for a month. I don’t know if I want to break down and sob or dive headfirst into the forest and roll around in the first puddle I find.
I strain against him, needing to be free.
“You’re ready,” he assesses and releases me. “It’s going to hurt but the pain doesn’t last long.”
I face him. “Is there more?”
“A lot,” he answers with a half smile. “In wolf form, you experience everything.”
I can’t imagine how much more there is when my senses feel like they’re humming and maxed out.
A line of bats pulls my attention towards the sky, and I marvel at the shapes of their wings, at the cries they make that I can’t hear as a human. Beneath the clouds, I dance away from the werewolf and twirl in the middle of the field. Grass tickles my thighs and calves, and I laugh as the wind seems to embrace me, teasing my puckered nipples and the back of my neck. Even the brush of my hair against my back is almost orgasmic.
With my eyes closed, I can sense the world around me. I can sense him most of all, standing several feet away, watching me dance and whirl, lost to the sensations of my body. Perhaps because he’s the alpha, I always just know where he is. I have a healthy disrespect for authority, but there’s a part of me that understands that he’s more than a running partner this night. He’s my protector, my guide, my anchor in this bizarre yet incredible new world.
His scent changes, grows heavier, thicker, less man and more fur, and I cease twirling to look at him.