by Tate James
Nic flashed a tight smile at me before taking a breath and shaking out his hands, fingers curling as the wolf reared to the surface, desperate to get out, to run, to chase, to fight. I stepped back, the nearness between us too much for me to handle. It was hard to watch anyone shift, to let them morph and meld and melt while I was stuck standing still, encased in a single form, skin itching for release. But with Nic? It was like there was this pull between us, this irresistible urge to touch and feel, to lay my hands on his bare chest and feel the change happen beneath my fingers.
I turned away fully and leaned my right shoulder against the tree, waiting for the quiet whisper of paw pads before I looked back. I only caught the tail end—quite literally—of Nic before he disappeared into the trees, his auburn fur whipping past the brown and green and blending into the shadows.
He'd find this pack, whoever they were, and he'd turn them back. Or at the very least, he'd lead them somewhere safe, somewhere with reception where they could shift and he could get a hold of my mother. For now, I'd wait. If he wasn't back in ten, I'd leave his clothes here and I'd go.
I leaned my back against the trunk of the ponderosa pine and stared back up the gentle slope of the mountain we were on, at the shadows of the trees and the damp earth that was still partially crystallized from last night's freeze. It was pretty here, sure, but it was hard to relax knowing a group of thirty people was just around the corner, guidebooks open and phones snapping photos of half-dead flowers. Winter had come early this year and stayed late, messing with the spring term and the offered classes. It was hard to study wildflowers when most of them were either frozen or had yet to spring up at all.
I checked the time on my phone. Two minutes. Nic should be with the pack now, drawing their bloodied scent away from me and the classmates moving steadily in my direction. It wasn't like wolves were extinct in Oregon or anything, but a large group of really big wolves stinking of copper, mouths tinged pink with a recent kill? I did not want to see the confrontation between the two groups.
I closed my eyes, listened carefully, past the gentle rustle of branches overhead and the whistle of the wind in the valley. If I really concentrated, I could hear my professor's ongoing lecture, the excited perk in his voice that said he really truly loved his job.
I wished I was as big a fan of mine.
Then again, my professor chose his job; I was assigned mine. It wasn't that I didn't want to be alpha, that I didn't care about my people, it was the lack of choice involved in all of it. My mother didn't sit me down one day and ask how I felt about being her heir. No, I was born into it. Instead of coming into the world with a sibling or two, a litter that could be picked and chosen from, I came alone. Okay, well that's not exactly true—I had sisters in the womb with me, three of them actually, but they were all born dead.
So. First litter, one pup. One alpha.
“Daydreaming again?” a voice asked from behind me, startling me so bad that when I spun around, I was ready to fight. I fell into a crouch and rose just as quickly, hoping that Julian wouldn't comment on the move. How the hell did he manage to sneak up on me? I wondered with no small amount of awe. It shouldn't have been possible, but there he was, six feet away and smiling like he had no idea the start he'd just given me. I took note of the moment, filed it away, but decided that I was too caught up in my own head, wasn't paying attention. At this point, it was the only explanation I had.
“Sorry?” I asked, running my fingers through the burning brightness of my hair, hair that was hardly unique in my pack. Ebon Red was famous for our flaming red hair and pale skin, the purple-raven color of our eyes, eyes that had gotten more than one of us into an awkward situation or two, barely explained away with the mention of colored contact lenses. At least most people were just too polite to ask.
“You seem to daydream a lot,” Julian said with a shrug, tucking his hands into his pockets and then glancing down at Nic's discarded pile of clothes. His black and white checkered boxers were sitting right on top. Of course they were.
“Nic'll do anything for a bet,” I said with a wild smile, knowing how ridiculous and unbelievable it sounded. But when you grew up in an entire community of werewolves, you learned that stupid and believable lies were better than impossible truths. “Especially if it involves money,” I added with a sly smile, putting my cell back in my pocket and withdrawing my loose mitten. My younger sister, Aria, knitted the pair for me as a Christmas present, passing the package to me with a nervous smile that said while she loved me, she feared me just like everyone else.
“Um,” Julian began as I tugged the wool over my fingers and pretended to be cold, shivering and forcing my smile into a grin. I could only pray that Nic didn't come back until I'd gotten rid of Julian. He'd hear him, sure, even from several miles away, but I had this feeling that if he got a whiff of this guy and me together, he'd come charging over here, hackles raised.
“Fifty bucks,” I added with a shake of my head. If I'd learned anything over the years, it was that money can get people to believe the unbelievable. One of my aunts getting caught naked in the garden center at the hardware store? A friend bet her a thousand bucks to do it. Seriously, works every time. It's better than trying to claim the person you're covering for—or worse, you—is a nudist. Or that they're deranged. Or both. “Honestly, I'd thought he negotiate for at least a hundred.” I glanced over my shoulder and then shrugged, looking back at Julian's wide brown eyes and raised blonde brows.
“Where did he go?” he asked with a nervous laugh, keeping his hands tucked into his pockets and attempting an unsure smile. Crap. I had a feeling he wasn't going to leave without some prompting.
“Who the hell knows?” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. “He can be weird sometimes.” I kept smiling and focused my attention on Julian. I knew he had a crush on me, from day one, and he was cute and all, but my life was about more than that. As an alpha, I had responsibilities. And a damn good sense of smell. Julian always had this air of mint and apples about him, this bright note weighted down with the heaviness of copper.
Blood.
Julian always smelt like blood.
And vampires.
I blinked at him and kept smiling, taking a few steps forward so I could look him right in the face, brush my breasts against his upper arm as I leaned in and wrapped the wool-covered fingers of one hand around his wrist.
Obviously, Julian wasn't a vampire or he wouldn't be walking around in bright gold midday sunshine, but he reeked of them, and I wasn't taking any chances.
“Let's forget about Nic, and catch up with the rest of the class. We get to partner up for our final project, right?” I bit my lower lip and turned Julian around, just in time to avoid the aubergine glare emanating from the shadows of a nearby pine. Sorry, Nic.
“Do you have a partner yet?” Julian asked as I steered him away from Nic's clothes and back toward the sounds of the class.
“Nope,” I said, forcing myself to keep smiling, keep walking. I could still smell the other pack, but the scent was receding. Good. Nic had done what he'd set out to do; he always did. “I don't have a partner yet.”
And I hated that that statement was true in more ways than one.
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