Territory?
It seemed to please the stranger, because he brushed past Ryan and dragged the engineer along after him. Ryan barely had the sense to close the door after himself, one foot kicking out to shove at it while he propped his mangled bike in the hallway.
“Here?” the man growled.
Ryan nodded. “Yeah. This is my home. There’s no-one else here.”
The stranger looked around again. He seemed perplexed.
“I mean, this isn’t all there is. I don’t live in a box.” Ryan bit his lip and dropped his keys into a wooden bowl by the door. “I’m Ryan. Ryan Miller.” He thrust his hand toward the blond, and dipped his head again just in case the gesture was too forward.
“Sauri Whitepaw-” The blond hesitated, then frowned. “I am Sauri. No longer Whitepaw.”
“Sauri.” Ryan had no idea what he meant about his surname. Maybe he’d been disowned? “I’m sorry. I, uh. I need to wash. Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll be right out?”
Sauri blinked. “You do not wish to mate?”
“Woah! Woah, god, uh!” Ryan felt heat rising in his cheeks. “You don’t wait around, do you?”
Sauri’s lip curled. “You are the one who called to me.”
“I didn’t!”
Sauri huffed. “You are doing it even now! Do not play games with me.”
“I’m not!” Ryan’s mind whirled.
Oh god, what had he done? He’d invited some total goddamn stranger into his apartment; he’d even said some really stupid things like “I’m yours” to him. No wonder the guy thought they were about to get straight down to it!
“You are very confusing,” Sauri said. “I smell your arousal. You have offered yourself to me. Why now do you change your mind?”
“I’m not-” Ryan rubbed his forehead. His eyes were beginning to ache from being without his glasses for so long. “I’m sorry. Look. You’re really hot. I don’t usually-” He swallowed. “I don’t do hookups! I just… I need to wash all this crud off.”
Sauri finally looked down to his injuries. “Do you need to go to a hospital?”
“No. Nothing’s broken. I just gotta get the dirt out and put some Neosporin on it or something.” Ryan exhaled and slid past Sauri so that he could lead the blond through to the lounge. “Seriously, make yourself at home and I’ll be as fast as I can and then we can talk.”
“Talk?” Sauri laughed briefly. “What about?”
Ryan stared at him. “You know? Who we are, what we like, what we do… Get to know each other?”
“I already know you. You are my mate.”
“Yeah, I-” Ryan licked his lips and tried to shove down the urges that rose within him at Sauri’s words. “I don’t just… fall into bed with a guy!”
Sauri stepped away. He paced the room, poking at furniture and books as though they were wholly new things to him. “Bathe,” he eventually grumbled. “Then we will ‘talk’.”
“Right.”
Ryan turned on his heel and stumbled through to the bathroom, leaving the gorgeous and very strange man exploring his apartment.
What the hell had he done?
The shower awoke Ryan’s stinging injuries, and once he was clean the extent of his encounter with the road’s surface became evident. There were whole areas of skin scraped away, exposing the freshly-pink flesh beneath: his palms; an arm; both butt cheeks; almost the whole length of his left leg. He’d have to use gauze; there was no way a Band-Aid would cover any of this.
Yet his mind was resolutely fixed on Sauri.
He had only seen the blond with clarity for a few seconds before hitting the car’s wing, yet even without his glasses there was something about him that Ryan just couldn’t put his finger on beyond the certainty that this man was his; that they had to be together. It made no sense. Worse, he could have been killed just for staring at some guy he’d never met.
Sauri must have felt something too, though. The guy stuck around through the accident, waiting for the cops to come and go. He stood by the whole time when he could have - should have - gone to wherever he was headed by the time Ryan was able to leave.
What the hell was all that “you are my mate” stuff anyway?
Ryan left the shower and patted himself dry, trying and failing not to get towel fluff into any of his road rash. Instinct pushed at him to go out to Sauri, and he had to fight the urge, fumbling with the Neosporin as he took the time to apply it to every patch he could reach.
This was ridiculous. He could’ve broken something. Hell, his glasses were trashed; his laptop was probably screwed. He winced at the thought of explaining the accident to Andie and hoped to hell they wouldn’t try taking the cost of a replacement out of his wages. If nothing else the screen had to be cracked, and he wouldn’t like to trust the hard drive after giving it such a brutal knock.
He snorted. Worrying about his work laptop on top of everything else?
Geek.
There was no use worrying about it now. He needed to work out what the hell to do with Sauri. They could get dinner. Ryan was still ravenous.
Dinner. That was a great idea. And it was normal! People did that: they had dinner and got to know each other before rubbing up against each other and making weird-ass declarations like some kind of sex-crazed animals. They could order takeout-
Ryan growled.
Okay, he could defrost some meat and do something with it. That worked.
Decision made, he sneaked quickly through to his bedroom to grab some clothes.
All Ryan could stand to dress in was a loose pair of shorts and an equally baggy t-shirt. He had a garish green and yellow pair of Hawaiian-style board shorts, and anything tighter than those pressed against his abused skin. He didn’t think peeling pants off once they’d dried into his wounds would be awesome, so the awful board shorts had to stay. Maybe they’d take Sauri’s attention off his over-sized “Trek yourself before you wreck yourself” t-shirt: he’d wanted the shirt too badly to accept that they didn’t have his size in stock, and he’d figured at the time that buying an XL wouldn’t be too baggy.
It was, and the shirt spent most of its life at the bottom of his drawer.
When he fished his spare glasses out from the back of his closet he grimaced at himself in the mirror.
“Way to go, Ryan. You look like a total train wreck.”
The t-shirt clashed with his shorts. Worse, his spare glasses were cheaper frames that looked fresh out of the Seventies. All that added to the swathes of road rash over his exposed skin made him feel like he was back in High School.
All in all this wasn’t his ideal look for a first date.
His insides were filled with butterflies when he opened the door and stepped through to the lounge. Sauri was still there; he hadn’t gotten bored and left. Now that Ryan could see him, he gasped at the stranger’s almost feral bearing. Sauri was lean and muscular, bulging from a t-shirt that barely stretched across his chest, and he prowled the interior of the apartment like a caged beast. His blond curls fell in uncontrolled ringlets over his shoulders and bounced with each step, yet there was nothing feminine about them. His green eyes were bright and caught the light to give off an almost unearthly sheen. He looked a little younger than Ryan, too, though not by much.
Sauri stopped pacing and lifted his chin, his piercing gaze traveling down Ryan’s body. “Why are you not healed?”
Whatever Ryan could possibly have expected Sauri to say, that wasn’t it. “What? I only had a shower. It’s not a magic healing shower.”
Sauri blinked and crossed the room in three long strides, going from safe distance to almost touching. Ryan caught his breath as Sauri leaned in and licked his throat again, and lifted his head to give Sauri access.
“You are a shifter,” Sauri said, his tone accepting no argument. He straightened and looked Ryan in the eye, then his brows twitched and he lifted a hand to Ryan’s glasses. He poked one lens with a fingertip. “What is this?”
Ryan c
ursed under his breath and took them off, cleaning the lens of its new fingerprint by rubbing it with his t-shirt. He slid them back on, but there was still a little smudge. “They’re my glasses. I’m near-sighted.” At Sauri’s continued confusion he added “I can only see things that are close to me without them. Like, this close.” He held his hand about five inches from his own nose.
Sauri’s nose crinkled. “You are impaired?”
“Okay. I have to ask, and there’s no really polite way I can think of to say it, but: what planet are you from? ‘Cause everyone knows what glasses are for, and nobody calls anybody ‘impaired’. That’s, like, super rude-” Ryan tailed off as Sauri’s eyes remained on him.
“Among my people it can lead to death. It is not always possible to support an impaired member of the pack through a harsh winter.” Sauri’s face scrunched up. “But I have never heard of a shifter having poor vision. I do not know whether it is important. We use our smell for tracking prey across longer distances.”
Ryan’s butterflies were dropping like stones.
Sauri was a nutjob.
“Okay, well, uh. I’m kinda hungry, and you’re crazy, so how about we just shelve this for now and maybe you can give me your number and if I’m ever in the mood for your particular brand of, uh, whatever I can give you a call?” Ryan put on his best ‘thanks but no thanks’ smile and gestured toward the door.
Sauri stepped back. “You use words, but they do not make sense.”
Ryan grit his teeth. “You’re nice. Like, super hot. And I can’t deny there’s this-” he waved a hand between them “-thing going on here. But I think maybe there’s been a mistake. I’m not a ‘shifter’ and I don’t hang out with a ‘pack’. I’m not gonna die in the winter because I can’t hunt my own food or whatever. I’m not an animal, and you aren’t either. You get what I’m saying?”
“We are both shifters.” Sauri bared his teeth like a dog faced with a threat.
Ryan’s head dipped, almost automatically. Where was this strange need to show deference coming from? “Look,” he said, speaking more softly, “I’ve been having a weird time lately, and-”
Sauri nodded. “You have the dreams.”
Ryan pursed his lips. “Yeah-”
“And the hunger.”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “How do you-”
“I do not understand. You look older than me, and I came to the change very late. How is it you still have not had your first change?” Sauri stepped in again and sniffed Ryan’s chest, as though he were confirming Ryan’s scent. “This is why you are not yet healed,” he mused to himself.
Ryan puffed his cheeks out, but couldn’t pull away from Sauri. The man’s mere presence was enough to hold him in place. “Now you’re the one using words that make no sense,” he grumbled.
“I am not.” Sauri almost pouted, and then his shoulders sagged. It wasn’t a posture Ryan expected to see in him. “My first change was only two nights ago,” he continued, as though revealing some deep-held shame. “I am not yet familiar with my new shapes. But I was foolish and swelled with the fullness of the moon. I challenged my father as Alpha of the Whitepaw Pack.” Sauri’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he moved away from Ryan, his shoulders still slumped. “I did not win.”
Ryan watched Sauri walk away from him, and it hurt. It ached. His body thrummed with the need to follow, to comfort him, but he held his place. “Are you saying you’re, what? A werewolf or something?”
“Weer?” Sauri shook his head. “I do not know this word. I am a shape shifter. We are born in human form, and when our change comes upon us our other shapes manifest. You and I are wolf shifters. I have heard stories of others, but I have never met one.”
Ryan managed to peel himself away from his spot, moving with slow, stiff steps toward the couch. Only when he reached it did he realize that sitting would hurt like hell, so instead he lingered beside it like he’d meant to do that all along.
He wished he could remember what the advice was for handling a schizophrenic. Should he be trying to deny Sauri’s delusion or encourage it? He rubbed his cheek with a knuckle and tried to think back to a thread he’d read on a forum some time ago, but he couldn’t even recall how long ago it had been. And Sauri might not even be schizophrenic, or schizoaffective, or whatever it was called; he could be some whole other brand of mentally ill.
Or he could be a werewolf.
Ryan shifted his hips in discomfort. “Okay,” he said, his voice low with caution. “Show me.”
Sauri’s fingers hooked under the hem of his t-shirt and he hoisted it up, turning side-on to Ryan as the bunched material revealed a slew of long, scabbed lines. They began under his arm before sweeping over his chest, and the full length of them became apparent as Sauri continued to turn. He stopped once he faced Ryan fully, his face turned aside.
“Holy shit.” Ryan moved to him at last, able to stay away no longer. He frowned down at the scars. They were clean, at least, and there was no sign of infection. He brushed his fingers carefully alongside each one feeling for the telltale heat of one brewing below the surface, but his skin felt fine.
It felt better than fine.
Sauri’s body was trim and well-defined. His skin was silken and warm, and he hadn’t shaved or waxed or otherwise interfered with the fine, downy hairs that trailed up from his pants and pointed at his belly button. The scars were old enough to have sealed, and the scabs over them were bumped above the surface by the new, healed skin below.
He pressed his lips together. “I thought you said this was a couple of nights ago?”
“It was.”
“This isn’t a new wound.”
“It is.” Sauri peered down at the scars. “Were they not caused by a shifter’s claws they would have already healed, but it is taking time.”
Ryan couldn’t deny it: they sure as hell looked like claw marks.
He shook his head. “This… wasn’t what I was asking you to show me, anyway.” He tore his eyes from Sauri’s almost-flawless abdominals, but that just left him open to get trapped by the blond’s emerald gaze. His breathing quickened.
“Then what?” Sauri rolled his t-shirt down, but his eyes didn’t leave Ryan’s.
“I meant, uh.” Ryan’s mouth dried up. “Show me, like, I don’t know what you’d call it. Your other shapes?” He sucked in air. “Show me that you’re a shifter. Prove it.”
Sauri frowned again.
Ryan had to admit he felt a little disappointed. How awesome would it have been if Sauri could stand by his claim? A real, actual werewolf? That would have been something totally out of this world.
“I do not know,” Sauri murmured. “I am unused to my shapes, and the moon is full tonight. I cannot say what might occur.”
“Yeah, well.” Ryan sighed. “You want something to eat?”
Sauri broke into a bright grin. “You wish to hunt?”
“No, I, uh-” He gestured toward the kitchen. “I was just gonna defrost a steak or something.”
Sauri’s grin faltered, and he sniffed the air in the direction Ryan pointed. “I do not understand.”
“You’re kidding me.” Ryan could’ve kissed him right there. Sauri hadn’t a clue what Ryan was talking about, and it was kinda cute, just like his playing with the elevator doors had been. “You’re not kidding me,” he added. His lips twitched into a slight smile.
“I am doing nothing to you,” Sauri declared with a faint pout.
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Ryan cleared his throat. “Anyway. You don’t wanna show me what you can do, and I’m hungry, so I’m gonna get something to eat.” He slid past Sauri and headed for the kitchen, and his body ached with every step.
He knew Sauri followed him. It was more than the sound of footsteps on carpet; the man had a presence which made itself felt no matter where he stood.
“You do not believe me.”
“Correct.” Ryan tugged his freezer door open and began searching for a steak. There had to
be one in there somewhere, or had he already eaten the last one?
“Why not?”
“’Cause people can say some crazy stuff, okay?”
“You are my mate!”
“Yeah, see, that’s pretty crazy!” Ryan accidentally bumped his hand up against a bag of peas, and he hissed.
He found a pack of chuck steak, buried at the back of a drawer and with a slight coating of ice over the shrink wrap. His stomach didn’t seem to object, so he took it out and nudged the door shut.
Sauri was closer than he’d expected, and he gasped, nearly dropping the slippery pack.
“Then I will do as you ask.” Sauri grimaced. “But be aware that I am not practiced in this.”
Ryan bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t know what to say, so he nodded, his head dipping slowly. Maybe he should put a little space between them in case Sauri went apeshit when he ‘failed’ to change his shape, or maybe all the bullshit about the full moon was his way of paving the way for that failure. He’d pretty much set it up so that he couldn’t be forced to prove what he was saying, so maybe Sauri wasn’t the type of crazy to lose his shit when he got caught in his fantasy. All Ryan had to do was nod, act like he was truly sympathetic, get Sauri out of his apartment, then start looking for a new home now that the guy knew where he lived.
Which was all fine until Sauri’s skin rippled.
At first Ryan thought it was some weird twitching he was doing, but that idea didn’t last. The very flesh on Sauri’s arms shuddered as though it were water hit by a pebble, and the waves spread over the surface and left his hairs standing on end in their wake. Sauri’s hands flexed, and even his fingers rippled.
Fingers didn’t have muscles in them.
There was no way Sauri could make his skin do that. Not there. No way.
A second later the ripples were followed by needle-like spines sprouting through the skin, yet there was no blood. Another second and the spines softened into fur; bright and white over Sauri’s fingers and hands, turning to a deep grey-black past his wrists and up his forearms.
It was all bizarrely okay until Sauri’s face began to change.
Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 25