Once Upon a Wolf

by Rhys Ford

  It probably didn’t help that he’d reached the point of having to work a sex scene into his story. They were always the most difficult part of a novel to craft. It’d been too long since he’d touched someone else, touched another man’s skin, and describing his wants—his own deep desires—on a page for others to read and delve into opened up an intimate part of him he didn’t know if he was really willing to share. The scenes captured on the page were distant imaginings, nearly clinical as he observed them unfolding in his mind. It was easy enough to sketch out the motions, flinging out empty words of affection and love, when he didn’t have one of the most desirable men he’d ever seen lying a few feet away.

  Zach Thomas was more of a problem than Gibson wanted to deal with. He believed the man when Zach promised he’d say nothing about Ellis. Still, it was a risk Gibson had to assess. All it took was a single whisper, something overheard by someone who would know Ellis’s condition and take it upon themselves to rid the world of a possibly mad werewolf. Ellis chasing Zach could have been nothing more than a game, that cocky mischievousness his brother was known for, or a sign of Ellis’s final descent into insanity.

  “If only you’d stayed human just a little while longer,” Gibson whispered at his slumbering brother. “I just wish I knew. I need something to tell me that it will be okay, that I should still have faith.”

  No matter how long he stared into the fire, Gibson gained no answers. The flickering flames crackled, seemingly chuckling at his frustration and ignorance, then chortling over the lust Zach drew out of Gibson’s primal urges. Sighing, Gibson leaned forward and stared at the last few paragraphs he’d written before tumbling down the mountainside to rescue his brother and his prey.

  “Okay, let’s turn on the Barry White and get the two of you into your groove,” he grumbled at his half-finished chapter. “If I don’t get this book finished, the only wolf in danger of getting skinned will be me.”

  THE NEXT time Zach emerged from the cobweb of shadows trapping him, it was nearly pitch-black. He was suffocating under the weight of something warm and heavy. He couldn’t breathe, and his limbs were sluggish, nearly as slow-moving as his thoughts. A shimmer of light bled over the shaggy mound near one corner, the flickering remains of a fire in the cabin’s fireplace. He couldn’t tell what time it was; it could’ve been night or even daytime if the storm covered the area. Zach could still hear it, whipping up the trees with its howling winds, and there was no mistaking the chill in the air when he pushed the covers from his chest.

  He couldn’t see a clock, but he also couldn’t remember if there was one to begin with. Other than the storm and the crackling in the fireplace, the place was quiet. It took him a moment to discover Ellis’s brother sleeping in a large recliner on the far side of the cabin. Or at least he hoped the man was sleeping, because he badly needed to pee. Getting up was a challenge, made more difficult by the dizziness swamping his head. The room tilted again, then righted itself when he leaned against the back of the sectional to regain his balance. He got four steps toward the door he hoped was the bathroom when his foot struck a bookcase.

  “Motherfucker.” Zach tasted blood and felt the shreds of his cheek with the tip of his tongue. “Shit.”

  By the fire, Ellis the wolf snorfled in his sleep, flopping his great body over to warm his belly. Bending over was a bad idea, Zach discovered, when he tried to rub away the pain across his toes. His stomach rebelled, and a familiar sourness burned up his throat. Lurching toward the door, he fought to keep his sick down, desperate to reach the bathroom before he lost control.

  “That’s a closet.” The man’s strong voice boomed through the shadows. “If you’re looking for the front door, it’s the one to your right, but you’re not going to get very far. Snow’s nearly up to the roof in some places, and besides, you’re still naked.”

  “I need to—” He didn’t make it. Or at least he thought he wouldn’t. As his belly clenched, Zach felt strong arms around his ribs and the press of a bare chest on his back. He’d not seen the door to the left, and he barely heard the man rattle the doorknob open, but a moment later nothing else mattered but the sick-covered sink in front of him and the press of a hand between his shoulder blades.

  “Stay here. I put some sweats and a new toothbrush for you by the towels. Figured you’d eventually need to go to the bathroom, maybe even wash up a little bit, but that was before we lost power. Pump runs on electricity, so until I fire up the generator in the morning, you’re going to have to be happy with the sponge-down I gave you. How about if you get dressed while I throw some wood on the fire?” The man rubbed Zach’s shoulders again and stepped away. “I’ve got a kettle going in the fireplace. Maybe some tea will settle your stomach. You okay with me leaving you? Come out when you’re ready, or if you feel like you can’t make it, give a yell and I’ll help you.”

  “Yeah, I should be okay. Hopefully.” Zach waited for the wave of cold sweats to subside. The cool stone of the bathroom counter felt good under his hands, but the chill in the cabin was beginning to nip at his skin, and a shiver ran down his spine. It stayed in his belly, arguing with the nausea already floating there. His mouth felt puckered and his throat was dry, as if he’d swallowed the rock he’d hit with his head. Leaning over the sink, Zach turned his head slightly before the man left the cramped narrow space. “I didn’t catch your name. I know his is Ellis, but you didn’t tell me yours.”

  “I’m Gibson. And you’re Zach Thomas. Welcome to Big Bear.” He handed Zach a towel, then tried the light switch. The bathroom remained dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of the fire in the other room. “Shit, I can’t believe I did that. I know the damned power’s out.”

  “I didn’t imagine you were somebody who kept up with the gossip in the neighborhood.” Zach smiled despite the tightness in his belly. “So you heard I purchased the Wilson place and put two and two together?”

  “No,” he replied, flashing Zach another of his tender, sexy smiles. “You had your wallet on you. Once you get settled, I’ll introduce you to Ellis, if he’s awake.”

  “I know this sounds like a stupid question but….” Zach paused, cocking his head, then instantly regretting it because his spine twisted with another hit of nausea. Tamping it back down, he continued, “He doesn’t bite, right? I mean, he was pretty aggressive coming down the hill after me.”

  “Actually, if you want to know the truth, he probably figured he was getting me company.” Gibson chuckled. “He used to give me shit about my love life—before what happened—and always said I needed help finding a date. Knowing him, it probably started off as a joke somewhere in that tiny mind of his, and he didn’t think it all the way through.”

  Zach waited until Gibson left the bathroom to scrub his face with a handful of water from the jug Gibson left on the counter and use the toilet. Reaching for the mound of black clothes set on top of a rainbow stack of towels, Zach stole a glance at the wolf lying by the fireplace. Despite his massive head being nearly shrouded in shadows, Ellis’s eyes gleamed in the dark, and Zach wondered if he was imagining the hint of mocking amusement in those narrow amber slits.

  “You knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you?” Zach muttered softly, pulling a pair of too big sweatpants over his legs. “I don’t know who I should be more careful around, the wolf or his brother.”

  Three

  “THERE IS a loft upstairs. Steps are over by the back door. If you think you can make it, there’s a bed. You might be more comfortable.” It was an offer Gibson wondered if he was going to regret. It was already difficult to think with the scent of Zach filling the living space. He didn’t know how he would be able to handle the sweet musk of Zach’s body on his sheets. Muttering to himself, he put the kettle back on its hook over the fire. “I’ll probably just have to burn them. Don’t think there’s enough soap in the world to make me forget he’d slept on them.”

  Zach appeared to be mostly leg, and despite the wobbliness in his balance, he
moved easily across the room toward the table, using the sectional for support as he passed by. Gibson’s sweats hung on him, a swaddle of cotton fleece over a deliciously hard, muscled body. He’d tried not to look, or at least tried to keep a clinical perspective when he’d stripped Zach of his frozen clothes, but it was as if Ellis picked through his thoughts and found the one man within a thousand miles that could make Gibson go hard just by looking at him.

  His patient’s hair dried lighter than Gibson expected, a tousled jaw-length mane of warm browns and antique gold. His eyes were dark, a soulful burnt umber touched with glimpses of pain that seemed to live within their depths, rather than newly visited from Zach’s recent injuries. The man’s lips drew Gibson’s attention time and time again. They held a plump ripeness, a blush berry fullness of a mouth made for sin. When Zach’s white teeth dimpled his lower lip, more than likely to hold back a small cry of pain when he barked his knee against the coffee table, Gibson had to look away. There was something about the man Ellis chased down, some viscous connection between them, a connection Gibson couldn’t risk even if every fiber of his being wanted to.

  “The couch is fine,” Zach said, slowly easing down into one of the dining room chairs. Flashes of discomfort changed his face, straining his thoughtful expression. “I could barely walk across the floor right now. Don’t think I want to attempt stairs. Besides, I don’t want to kick you out of your bed.”

  “It’s not a problem,” Gibson replied, setting a cup of hot tea in front of Zach. “On nights when Ellis is restless, I usually crash down here. You sure you’re okay? You’re not looking too steady. Maybe we should try to get you into town. And if we keep this up, we’re going to end up sounding like those two chipmunks. How about this—we’ll get some soup and tea in you first, then if you feel like shit, I’ll try to take you down the hill. I don’t… it’s different for me and Ellis… we heal differently. I know there’s not a lot they can do, but… I’m kind of talking myself into taking you down the hill.”

  “Mostly, I’m sore.” He grimaced, shifting in his seat. “Food sounds nice. I intended to eat when I got back from my walk, so it’s been a while since I’ve had something in my stomach. If I can’t keep it down, then maybe we should go. I don’t know how bad it is outside. I don’t want to risk your life—or mine—when it isn’t necessary. My mom raised a stupid kid, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Yeah, I say that about my brother all the time too.” Gibson glanced over at Ellis, but his brother appeared to be fast asleep. “I’m not sure Mom ever was convinced I wasn’t the stupid one.”

  The canned soup could only be called edible at best, but it didn’t seem like Zach minded the salty broth or the pasty stars floating in it. He ate slowly, stopping a few times to sip at his tea, then pushed the bowl away after eating most of it. Gibson refilled their cups, smiling to himself when Zach’s eyes widened slightly as he added six heaping spoonfuls of sugar to his own tea.

  Rattling the spoon about to dissolve the sugar, Gibson said, “Sweets aid in fueling our metabolism. It’s hard to get sugar into Ellis, so if you see me feeding him a couple of bars of chocolate, don’t get alarmed. Made the mistake once of doing that in front of the grocery store, and some lady ripped my head off about chocolate being poisonous to dogs.”

  “Is this the time that I’m supposed to ask you about your brother and how you’re not going to kill me?” Zach looked over the rim of his cup. “Because right now, my brain is overloaded and confused… um… and I don’t think all of it is just from the concussion.”

  There was a giant elephant in the room—or rather a giant black wolf—one Gibson really didn’t want to look at or poke. Sitting across of a man who’d brought to life every desire Gibson thought he’d buried, he wasn’t prepared to have a discussion about his bloodline or Ellis. Over the course of his life, he had to have that particular conversation with only three people, all of whom, like Zach, saw something they had never imagined they would ever see. As far as he knew, there was only one person Ellis had that conversation with, the hard-eyed man who’d brought him back from the wars in the desert, so dealing with Zach, no matter how pleasant the man looked, was a necessary evil Gibson wasn’t ready to face. From the expression on Zach’s face, a resolute, unwavering acceptance and curiosity, their talk was going to be a long one, and Gibson knew he wouldn’t be able to convince Zach that the less he knew, the better it would be.

  But he sure as hell was going to try.

  “I don’t know really what you expect to hear. I don’t know if anything that I say is really going to change things for you,” Gibson started. “You’re going to walk away, remember? And if you decide not to say something about Ellis—”

  “Look, I know you don’t know me, so whatever comes out of my mouth, to you it’s just air, but I not only won’t say anything, I can’t.” Zach set his tea down, then rubbed at his face, mumbling past the heel of his hand. “When I was a kid—about ten—I got lost in Yellowstone during one of my family’s camping trips. I’d gotten mad at something my mother said, I actually don’t even remember why I was pissed off, but I stomped off in a huff. It was stupid, and it got worse because it was close to dark and my family figured I would just turn around and come back. But I didn’t.

  “You do stupid things when you’re a kid, because everything is black and white and you think you’re invincible—okay, maybe you’re invincible, but I sure as hell am not—so there I was, lost as shit and wandering through a place I had no business being.” He leaned across the table, his fingers nearly touching Gibson’s, and Zach looked away, toward the fire and the enormous burden Gibson carried lying before it. The flames laid a gilt burnish on Zach’s handsome features and poured a bit of honey into his soulful eyes. “I swear to God, I took six steps into the forest and it was like the world I knew disappeared, as if it never existed. I heard no one, not another human voice, and no matter which way I turned, I was the only one around. And when nighttime fell… it didn’t come slowly, more like someone yanked the sun from the sky. There was a bit of a moon, enough to give me light to see by, but everything was just silver and blue. I want to say I was scared, but that isn’t a big enough word for what I was feeling.”

  “Nothing is scarier than the unknown,” Gibson agreed. Zach’s fingers trembled. Even pressed against the wooden table, there was a tremor to them, and Gibson reached out, covering Zach’s hand with his own. “I have been scared shitless quite a few times in my life, and I come armed with some pretty sharp teeth.”

  “So did the wolves that found me,” Zach whispered. “When a park ranger found me the next day, he didn’t believe me. I was a short kid, and these creatures were nearly as tall as I was—scary huge with paws about the size of my head. He didn’t call me stupid, but I could see it in his face he didn’t believe me. No one believed me. And there were just two of them, these massive wolves who’d herded me down to a small stream so I could get water, then laid on top of me when it started to snow. I’d tried to fit into this hole in the cliff next to the water, and they followed me, keeping me warm. But all the time, I was terrified. Every time one of them moved, I thought, they’re going to kill me now.

  “But well, obviously they didn’t, and when I woke up to the ranger calling my name, they were gone.” Zach grinned, a rueful quirk of his mouth. “I guess some part of my brain figured one of the wolves had come to finish the job when I saw Ellis. It’s probably why I ran, because that night, I was scared shitless even if that was probably when I’d been the safest. It’s stupid, because they were trying to protect me, but some lizard part of my brain refused to listen to reason.”

  “It’s different if you’ve got two hundred and fifty pounds of wolf on your heels than a couple trying to get you to drink from a river.” He patted Zach’s hand, then reluctantly drew his back. “From their size, it sounds like you’ve already met a couple of shifters. You’re what? Twenty-five? Wolves were introduced back into the park in the mid-90s, so your ranger working t
he park back then probably knew a hell of a lot about the reintroduction projects and the size of the wolves in the area.”

  “Yeah, no one believed me. Everyone spent a lot of time showing me exactly how big a wolf could get, and none of them were close to the ones I’d seen—the ones I’d been with—that night. My father kept telling me to stop lying, and it took a long time before anyone in the family would believe anything I said. I think that’s when I decided to bury everything that happened. Until yesterday, I hadn’t really thought anything about it. Hell, my brain waited until I was in your bathroom before unloading a bunch of memories I’d tucked away.” Zach shook his head, then whimpered, rubbing at the small mark on his temple. “God, that was a mistake—just like me telling anyone I saw a giant wolf yesterday. I am literally the boy that cried wolf.”

  ZACH WAS fading. Gibson could see it. The flush of color he’d had from walking across the floor was seeping away, leaving behind a pallor, and his eyes drooped, his lashes sweeping down slowly when he blinked. There was a small protest, barely worth mentioning, when Gibson maneuvered Zach back to the couch, but he settled into the sectional’s crook without much complaint. A bruise was beginning to come up on Zach’s forearm, an angry purple mottle going black around the edges, and Gibson didn’t even want to imagine how the rest of Zach’s body looked after his fall. Well, he didn’t want to imagine. He wanted to see the man naked and spread out over his bed, uninjured and ready for him, but considering Zach was probably covered in a tapestry of black-and-blue blotches, now wasn’t the time for anything more strenuous than a cup of tea.