by T. F. Walsh
With a shake of her head, Izzy wrested herself from Curtis’s lips. Uncanny light still flickered in his eyes and she shied from it. It made him wild, feral, frightening. His white teeth gleamed when he smiled. Bowing his head, he scraped those teeth against her throat. To her over sensitized skin they seemed sharper. A hand gathered and wound around her damp hair. Water trickled down her arched spine as Curtis squeezed and pulled, drawing her head back, exposing more of her throat to him.
Buttons slipped between Izzy’s fingers. She couldn’t see with her head yanked back, but Curtis’s shirt flapped open and her palm moved over his naked chest. The outside world and the beasts stalking it weren’t reality. Existence ended at the hard wall at her back, at the radiating body crushing her to it. Beyond their twining limbs was void, infinite and empty until they said it wasn’t so. And right now it was not so.
Curtis mouthed her neck, washed the delicate skin there with a flat tongue. Lower, he teased her nipple, pinched it in his lips and gently with his teeth. Both breasts responded to his play. Their tips tingled and hardened. Lower still, his fingers pressed between her legs, quashing the buzzing arousal hooded behind her aching lips. He ran his fingers over her slit, coaxing a slide of fluids from her heated entrance.
Weak legged, Izzy fought to keep herself upright. She grasped at Curtis’s jeans button, unfastening the closure and splitting his zipper. She shoved her hand through the metal teeth and rough denim and wrapped her fingers around his hard cock, threading it through his boxers and opened trousers. Curtis grunted against her breast. He sucked and tugged at her nipple as he drew back, releasing the budded flesh with a wet smack. The blunt head of his erection nudged her belly. Aiming him downward, she spread her legs and raised her hips, moving to take him inside. Before she could, he crouched and lifted her, his cock sliding free of her curled hand. He slung her over his shoulder. Free of his grasp, her wet hair dangled forward and swished. Water droplets patted the wood floor as he carted her to the couch. Situated on the sofa’s back ledge, Izzy wobbled when Curtis let go.
“I’m gonna fall.”
“I’ve got you,” Curtis said and circled an arm around her back. He urged her legs wide with his knee and positioned himself at her opening. Delicious pressure had her gasping and stilted his breath as well.
Torturously slow, he plunged into her and she stretched wider and wider. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t make a sound. His hips kissed her inner thighs and he pulled back. Air hissed through his clenched teeth. Wetted from her tight channel, his cock glistened between them. Needing that fullness, Izzy gripped his ass and tugged him closer. One deft maneuver later and he untangled himself, slipped from her entirely — the shock of it made her whimper — and pinched the swollen tip of his cock as she reached for him, teetering on the couch. He steadied her with his free hand on her thigh.
“I’m too excited,” Curtis said. Clear fluid welled at his tip and traveled down the under-curve of his shaft. Releasing himself, he caught her other thigh and dropped to his knees between her legs.
Breath whispered against Izzy’s thighs and her wide-open sex. Placing his thumbs in the crease of thigh and groin, Curtis spread her moistened lips further and lapped at her, wriggling his tongue into her passage. Izzy laced her fingers in his hair and tugged at his scalp and writhed under his attention. Tongue circling her clit, he inserted two fingers into her and worked them back and forth as he sucked her throbbing bud into his mouth.
“Curtis. Curtis!” She was so close. He grunted his acknowledgement and rose, sliding his cock up her cleft and massaging her clit with his head. She clung to his neck and coaxed his mouth with hers as he slipped down and penetrated her with a shallow stroke, which was all she needed to send her soaring.
Izzy came moaning into Curtis’s mouth while he drove himself in to the base. Her spasming sex clamped around his shaft and she thrust up her hips to meet his. Their bodies clapped together hollowly.
Veins corded in Curtis’s neck as he pumped into her. His breaths came quicker and quicker until he jerked inside her, hot fluid spilling from him. In his arms, she felt his muscles bunch and flex with his release. He held her like she was the one thing keeping him on Earth. His head fell to her shoulder, which he kissed, his lips moving up her neck and to her mouth. Easing from her with a shudder, he raked his fingers through her hair and tilted her head back so he could kiss her more deeply. Sweat dampened his skin and her palm was sticky with it.
Izzy slid from the couch, leather pulling from her thighs and bottom like clinging film. She swayed on her feet, but Curtis had her. Cheek against his chest, she held onto him, delighting in the great thump of his heart, the tide-like rush of his breath. He was so present and large and definite. She had the sense nothing could compromise him. Never mind the wolves at the door. In his arms nothing could touch her. What could ever go wrong when he held her like this?
• • •
The day hadn’t gone as planned — they’d ended it well, anyhow — but the results satisfied Curtis. Izzy slept soundly under his arm. The light sound of her breathing mingled with the soft hum of the space heater.
Too hot.
He worked himself over the covers, careful not to disturb his bedmate. After her scare, he figured she’d be wide awake for hours. Fucking Gerome. Loose perimeter didn’t mean stake out his goddamned porch. Clear-Skies had been so keyed up, Curtis was surprised he didn’t sprout a tail when he took Izzy on the couch. Their romp and the adrenaline crash from her fright must have sapped her energy. He yawned and his heavy lids drooped. Where the hell had his stamina gone? Ah, but this was normal. On his own turf in the aftermath of mind-blowing sex? He was lucky he hadn’t passed out already.
Another yawn stretched his mouth so wide the chapped skin on his lower lip split and stung. The tip of his tongue darted out and he tasted salt and copper. Stretching out, he curled his toes. Sleep wasn’t for him tonight. All his systems had to stay on high alert; nose filtering the air for Rapid’s proximity, body and wolf ready for action.
Night’s-Rapid-Water’s acrid musk had tinged the crisp smell of the coming storm on the trail that afternoon. From what Curtis could tell, his pack mate had been miles off. He hadn’t smelled the wolf since.
Come on, Rapid, Curtis thought. Don’t you dare screw me.
If the wolf didn’t come tonight and they didn’t catch him, Thomas would consider Izzy’s blood forfeit. There would be no concealing the pack’s true natures then. If she knew what they were, that a significant part of Curtis melded with the beast she feared and hated, what would she do? What would Thomas do? He’d use it as an excuse, of course, to get rid of her if Rapid didn’t.
Humans mixing with wolves never ends well, the Alpha had quipped on more than one occasion. Mundanes who know our secret end up targets. Keep your lips zipped unless you want that on your conscience.
Curtis wriggled to a new, somewhat cooler, position above the bedclothes. He’d deflect any proverbial (or literal) bullets aimed at Izzy. Just because he was a wolf didn’t mean they couldn’t be together. Aggie hadn’t been pack and his dad had made it work — Thomas’s naysaying had done nothing to prevent it. If Izzy loved Curtis, she’d accept Clear-Skies, too. He brushed his own spirit against his wolf’s icy essence, which contracted, pulsed, and spun. Clear-Skies gave him the wolf spirit version of the cold shoulder.
Izzy would accept them. She’d be fine with it. Maybe.
Well, couples kept secrets from each other all the time, didn’t they? She might never have to know. Curtis’s head sank into his pillow, which sighed out a rush of trapped air. No way he could keep a secret like that forever. The space heater clicked, punctuating the importance of that conclusion. Roasting air acted as a replacement comforter and settled over him like heavy wool.
Damn heat.
It made his brain fuzzy and sluggish and with Izzy next to him and the ma
ttress so comfy it was almost too much to keep his eyes open. But he had to. For Izzy. For Izzy he had to … stay … awake …
Chapter Fourteen
Pounding at the door.
Izzy’s eyes fluttered open. Body heavy with sleep, she couldn’t be certain she dreamed the pounding or not. Whoever knocked knocked again — an insistent cop-knock — and she had her answer. The comforter fell into her lap when she sat up. She draped it back over her chest awkwardly with her right arm as though the third, intruding presence might spy her somehow through the cabin walls. With her left hand, she shook Curtis who snoozed beside her on top of the covers. His snoring stuttered and he turned on his side at her disturbance yet he remained unconscious.
“Curtis,” Izzy said and shook him again.
Grumbling, he sniffed and his lips twitched and he tried to draw her to him. Evading capture, Izzy scrambled out of bed and he latched onto her pillow instead. Snoring resumed. The knocker knocked.
“Shit.” Izzy found her pajama bottoms and Curtis’s flannel shirt in the orange glow coming from the space heater. She’d hiked up the flimsy pants and fastened one button on the shirt before the rapping started up again, this time going on and on like a two ton woodpecker. How could Curtis not hear that racket? She recalled he’d mentioned that he could sleep through nuclear warfare, but she hadn’t taken him seriously. Her mistake. Though she would have preferred he answer his own door, whoever stood out in the cold sounded impatient and who came knocking in the middle of the night if not for an emergency?
Nook stood alert in the bedroom doorway. When Izzy passed he whined and bumped his snoot on her ankle. She looked at him and he coughed out a low wuff and paced, looking back and forth from the front room to the bedroom. She was nervous, too. Confronting a stranger at night in half-buttoned PJs wasn’t exactly safe. She cast off her reticence with a shake of her shoulders. She’d check the peephole in the front door, let whoever it was know Curtis was coming, and jump up and down on the man’s chest if that’s what it took to rouse him.
Floorboards creaked under Izzy’s careful steps. The knocking had ceased but picked up again when she came a few paces from the cabin’s entrance. The front door trembled under another volley of knocks and its hinges rattled. She almost turned back, then went on her toes and put her eye to the spy hole’s chipped gold rim. The cold metal ring brushed her cheek and eyelashes. The convex image of a man in a wide brimmed hat stood on the porch, flashlight in hand. His gold badge gleamed in the moon’s soft light. A ranger.
Something must have happened on the property, Izzy thought. Something terrible.
The wolf!
In a tumult of panic and guilt, all Izzy could do was stand there, caught in the furor of her raging thoughts. They should have told someone about the wolf when they saw it. Reported the animal to the authorities. Wolves didn’t leave the safety of their forests unless they were starving or mad or both. When a wolf treaded human territory it meant they were desperate and, in her mind’s eye, Izzy pictured someone else — Amanda first, then Dr. Turner, Claire, Travis, Melinda — in bloody tatters because she’d indulged herself with Curtis, wandered off the trail when she should have exercised self-restraint and responsibility.
Snatching the keys from their hook, Izzy fitted the right one in the scratched and dinged fixture and the lock clicked back. She threw open the door. Frigid air swirled around her. Icy tendrils curled beneath her clothing, caressing her calves and the under-curves of her breasts.
“What happened?” Izzy asked. “Is anyone hurt? Is everything all right?”
The ranger took a deep breath and shifted his weight. His hat shadowed his eyes, leaving his thin lips and grizzled chin exposed.
“Ma’am.” The ranger’s words came slow and slurred like one side of his mouth was dead, like he couldn’t form the right sounds. “I need Curtis Keene.”
Izzy put her left hand to her head. Of course, he’d want the property owner if something was wrong. He wouldn’t tell her. “Wait right there,” she said. “I’ll get him.” She whirled, so many frenzied thoughts zipping through her mind she forgot to ask him in or shut the door.
Izzy didn’t make it three steps. Weight barreled into her from behind and she pitched forward, belly flopping onto the hard wood floor. When her forehead struck the planks it sounded like someone dropped a brick from the ceiling. A film of wavering, bilious green glazed her sight as her head swam. She retched, tasted acid that burned her chest and the back of her throat. Choked gurgling escaped her, but there was no air for screaming. The ranger’s body crushed it out of her. From the darkened hall she heard Nook’s frantic yips.
The ranger’s weight eased up and Izzy gasped. Fabric tore above her as she scrambled for the bedroom, the walls and hall tilting like she rode a nauseating ride. She stumbled. Shreds of the ranger’s khaki shirt fell over her head and neck and a massive, black furred paw crashed down in front of her, barring her escape. She screamed and flattened herself to the floor. Hot labored breath steamed against her back and a rumbling growl shook her insides. Sickle-like claws carved deep grooves in the wood as the ranger’s — the creature’s — paw convulsed and elongated, bones snapping and popping into new and horrific shapes. A tortured howl deafened her, the cry somewhere between demon and beast. Something in that much pain couldn’t be an immediate threat.
Dodging the tree trunk appendage in front of her, Izzy crawled to the hall. She didn’t look back. Her head pounded like a second heart. The organ itself lurched and fluttered in her chest like a wounded sparrow. She had to get to Curtis and Nook. They had to get out. When her fingers skirted the shadowed edge of the open hall, a second blast of humid breath blew back her hair. Like spectral flames in the dark, two amber eyes shone from the gloom. Arms and legs rebelled though Izzy urged them backward, somewhere, anywhere away. She couldn’t move as the thing emerged from the hall.
The beast was silver and gray. Its ears flattened against its head and its lips curled back from a glistening set of enormous fangs. Its target was the creature howling at Izzy’s back, but when it passed, it took her in, shining nose inhaling her scent and lambent eyes narrowing. Curling into a tight ball, she mumbled jumbled snippets of what prayers she remembered from childhood, tacking pieces of the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, and the Apostles’s Creed together in an incoherent, Catholic pastiche. Prayers likely had nothing to do with it, but the beast passed her over. Its belly and tail grazed her head and back and then she did not feel its presence. Still, she did not move.
A thunderous crash drew Izzy from her defense and she scampered into the shadows before daring a peek behind her. The silvery beast had thrown the black ranger into the ashen fireplace. Khaki tatters littered the floor and clung to the ranger-monster’s dark fur. He’d tripled in size, dwarfing the silver wolf — for they were wolves, she realized, wolves of unnatural size — that had thrown him. Crouching, the silver wolf seized and trembled and Izzy watched its shape distort.
It grew faster than its opponent. Legs bulged and lengthened, bones twisted and cracked, and the creature that went on all fours stood upright, its sleek head half a foot from the ceiling. Leaping, it sank its teeth into the ruff of the black wolf struggling in the grate, throwing a spume of ash into the air. Like a crocodile with a captive gazelle, the silver wolf thrashed Izzy’s attacker back and forth. The ranger finally swiped one of its clawed paws at the beast’s muzzle, smacking it to the ground, and twisted free. Large as its white-gray cousin, the black wolf rose, a thick pelt of glossy fur covering its massive body. Aggression arced between them — silver wolf sprawled next to the fireplace and black wolf looming over it — a resonance that vibrated Izzy’s body like a struck tuning fork. Muscles cording, the black wolf prepared to strike his opponent, but when his nostrils flared — white clouds huffing from his nose and mouth — his head snapped toward the hall where she cowered.
Izzy scooted back
as the black wolf stalked toward her, her hand and bare feet squeaking over the wood planks. Its footfalls sent tremors through the floor and made the furniture jump. She could get to the bedroom, but what then? Out the window? What about Curtis and Nook? Had the silver wolf killed them? Blood hadn’t stained its muzzle — she’d had a clear view of that — but she couldn’t see Curtis rent in a dozen gory pieces and keep her sanity. Thinking, in this case, was a mistake. She should have followed her instincts and fled, but she’d hesitated one second too long. When the black beast hunkered down she knew she couldn’t escape and sanity became the least of her concerns.
The dark wolf sprang and Izzy screamed and flailed back. If the animal’s weight didn’t crush the life out of her, its teeth would snap her in two. Mid-leap, the silver wolf cannon-balled into its side and the animals careened into the couch, sending the furniture crashing into the flat screen and tumbling the standing lamps and speakers. The silver wolf regained its footing first, reared back, and bayed. Windows rattled with its bellow. Distant howls answered the call and the night filled with a haunting refrain.
The ranger-wolf scented the air and its eyes searched Izzy’s hiding place. It made one useless dash for her, but its lighter cousin cut him off, snarling and snapping its jaws.
Dropping to all fours, the dark beast loped from the living room, out the open door, and into the night. The silver wolf gave chase. Its claws plowed deep furrows in the floor, corkscrew curls of wood shedding from its paws. Over the white blanketed lawn, Izzy saw the flitting shadow of her attacker pursued by a mercurial shift of liquid moonlight. The silvery wolf’s coat blended almost perfectly with the snow. Izzy couldn’t visually track its pursuit, so she listened, waiting until it was safe to leave her cover. Yips and barks grew quiet as the chorus that had answered the silver wolf’s ululation. If she wanted out, now was the time. She didn’t have to think it over.