His mouth distended in a gut-churning, intuitively wrong way, lips drawing back over teeth which became rounded and sharp. Fur sprang from his cheeks but didn’t reach his muzzle until it was two inches long, leaving him a horrific mashup of a human being and a dog.
Or a wolf.
Ryan dropped the chuck. It slid from his numb fingers and clattered on the tile floor.
Sauri’s body flexed and he fell forward, only missing Ryan by a slender margin. By the time he landed on the floor his hands were paws and his whole body had lost mass somehow. The whole shape of his chest changed. His pants sagged around his waist and his feet vanished into them.
Sauri shook and wriggled out of his pants and a bushy tail sprang free from them. The t-shirt was still looped around his body, but now it was loose.
He looked up at Ryan. His eyes were still green, and still carried an eerie glow to them.
“Rrrroo,” he said.
“Ohshit,” was all Ryan could come up with.
Chapter Five
There was a wolf in Ryan’s kitchen.
Logically that either meant that there was a werewolf in Ryan’s kitchen, or that Ryan had finally flipped his lid and gone full crazy. He’d had an accident, he could well have hit his head and-
He clenched his jaw and reached down to touch the wolf’s head. Its lips curled and it showed its teeth, so Ryan moved his hand to touch the creature’s shoulder instead.
“You’ve got white paws,” he said, like that was the least absurd thing going on in this room right now.
Sauri’s eyes flit aside as though he thought Ryan’s statement were idiotic.
“This is real. I mean, you’re real. This is totally happening.” Ryan found the fur on Sauri’s shoulders to be thick, dense and soft. His fingers delved into it and discovered an even softer layer beneath which was warm and felt like cotton.
Sauri answered him with a short, sarcastic grumble.
“This is insane. I should-” He stopped.
What should he do? He couldn’t film it and stuff it online for likes and shares; that would expose Sauri and every other shifter out there. Eighty percent of people who saw it would claim it was fake, fifteen would squeal that they knew it to be true - just like the UFO sightings and faked moon landings - but five percent might believe it or have even been waiting on evidence of their suspicions. Hell if only one person in the world believed it and decided that Sauri was a monster to be destroyed, it would be one person too many.
His fingers petted the fur beneath them, carefully trying to settle it back into place and smooth over the gaps he’d created in the top layer by feeling beneath it. The end of Sauri’s tail flicked, and his ears twitched upright.
He couldn’t let Sauri back out onto the streets. The wolf didn’t have a clue about humans; Sauri seemed to think elevators were magical and glasses were singular. This could well be his first time among anyone not of his own pack, and the odds of him surviving in a city with rules he didn’t understand were slim. He could maybe eke out a living eating out of dumpsters, but sooner or later someone was likely to see him and shoot him. Sauri had indicated that he would heal such wounds quickly, but could there be a critical mass of bullets that would kill him before he could heal? Or just one lucky shot to the head or heart? Were shifters even aware that guns existed?
Ryan’s hand traveled down Sauri’s flank and he felt the parting of fur over the wolf’s scars. They were just as horrific in this form, and Sauri rumbled a threatening growl.
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” He lifted his hand and stood straight.
Sauri’s nose twitched, and he dropped his head to the abandoned chuck, nosing it.
A weak laugh belched out of Ryan, and he shook his head. “Oh god. You’re a werewolf. Properly a werewolf.”
Sauri pawed at the shrinkwrap and his claws punctured it. He stuffed his nose into the hole he’d made.
“It’s frozen,” Ryan explained. “That’s how we store food. If you freeze it it stops the bacteria growing, which prevents decay, and the food lasts longer.”
Sauri grumbled and stepped out of his pants, and his fur flowed like waves in the ocean. Each ridge left shorter and shorter fur in its wake, and his limbs thickened and twisted. Fingers sprouted from his paws. His muzzle shrank back into his face and his ears slid down his head as they became smaller. Soon Sauri was on his hands and knees with his bare butt in the air, and he pushed himself to his feet, shaking himself like a wet dog. “But it is not winter.”
Ryan blinked. “That’s amazing. You’re really able to just change, whenever you want?” He placed his hand against Sauri’s re-stretched t-shirt and felt the hard muscle beneath.
“Yes.”
“You, uh.” Ryan’s mind suddenly reminded him about Sauri’s naked ass, and he glanced down between them. He couldn’t help it. It was the most instinctive action, to double-check his suspicion, but he was confronted with a thick, uncut cock languidly laid over a bed of blond curls and it made his eyes bulge. “You don’t have pants on,” he blurted. “Sauri, oh my god! Where are your pants?” He turned away to look for them, trying to ignore what he’d just seen.
“They are there.” Sauri pointed to his crumpled jeans. He didn’t seem at all interested in covering himself.
“I guess you all just, like, parade around the forests naked, huh?” Ryan grabbed them up and tossed them at Sauri, who caught them with ease.
“Not when it is cold.” Sauri snorted. “But we see that humans wear things all the time. It is some sign of status, so our Alpha and his family wears garments in the summer also.”
“It’s not a status symbol!” Ryan stared at a speck of dirt on the fridge door. He heard the rustle of denim, but refused to look.
“Then what is it?” The rustling continued, then became the rasp of a zipper.
“It’s against the law to walk around naked. We can’t just have our genitals hanging out in public.” Ryan coughed. Even the tips of his ears felt hot.
“Because you are shut off from nature,” Sauri mused like it suddenly made sense to him. “It is more protection from that which you fear. Like your buildings and your vehicles.”
“No. I mean yeah, kinda. But no.” Ryan huffed. “Don’t get me started on our relationship with nature.” He risked a glance toward Sauri and found the shifter fully clothed and bent double to pull his sneakers on.
The shifter’s hair hung forward like a curtain around his head. His t-shirt rode up his torso and showed taut muscle leading into the dip in the small of his back. Ryan bit his lip.
Sauri was hot as hell, there was no denying it. Every animal instinct Ryan had screamed at him to submit to the young werewolf, and only his civilized will held him back. He had no doubt if he really was a shifter too they’d be rutting like animals on the couch already.
Who was he kidding? They’d have been on each other in the street the moment Ryan saw him if his common sense hadn’t prevailed.
Sauri rose and stared at Ryan.
Ryan fidgeted.
“How is it that you live among humans?” Sauri asked.
“Because I am one?”
Sauri barked a short laugh. “I have smelled you with my full senses now. You are a shifter. You are wolf.”
“You’re talking like it’s not a disease transmitted by bite-” Ryan blinked. “Is it genetic?”
Sauri tilted his head.
“Uh, is it passed down from parent to child?”
“Yes.” Sauri’s curls bounced when he nodded.
“Does it ever, like, skip a generation? Or are all children of shifters always shifters themselves?”
“It does not ‘skip’. Shifters bear shifter children.”
Ryan licked his lips slowly. “You, uh. You appear anatomically human. In this shape, I mean. Is it possible shifters have interbred-” He paused. “I mean mated,” he clarified, “with humans?”
Sauri’s emerald eyes narrowed, and then his expression shifted through doubt to
disbelief, shock, and finally disgust. “No!”
“Yeah, uh.” Ryan rubbed his jaw. “If there’s one thing I know it’s that over hundreds of thousands of years there’s always at least one asshole willing to break the boundaries of law, decency, taboo, or whatever other thing might be making you look like I just suggested you eat a rotted carcass. Speaking of which-” He leaned down with slow care, wincing as the motion stretched his injured skin, until he could scoop up the chuck off the floor. “You wanna eat this?”
Sauri still looked doubtful, but his gaze moved to the packet. He took a couple of seconds to answer. “I have eaten. You should have it.”
“Thanks.” Ryan turned and slid it into the microwave to defrost. “Anyway. I was born in Redmond, but I moved out to Seattle to study. That’s another city - a much taller one - near the water. Once I finished I came back here to work.”
Sauri’s face was relinquishing its sour look. “How many cities are there?”
“Oh, god. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. It depends on your definition of-”
Sauri’s lip jutted out.
“There’s a lot,” Ryan finished. “We’re like fleas on a dog. We’ll just keep breeding and sucking the life out of everything until the dog drops dead.” He sighed and shook his head. “You know, we’re so damn clever, and so heartbreakingly stupid all at the same time.”
“No. You are a shifter. You are not like humans.” Sauri curled his lip and lifted his chin. “You are a servant of Mother Luna. You are the protector of the wilds, the hunter of the weak. You keep the balance and you strengthen all around you.”
Sauri’s conviction was palpable, and Ryan only noticed he was holding his breath once Sauri stopped speaking. He gasped. “But you aren’t, are you? You - we - aren’t keeping the balance. Humans are out of control and they cover the entire planet. We destroy the very forests which make our air breathable, just so that we can keep on spreading.”
“Maybe this is why Luna has brought me here.” Sauri flashed a grin. “So that I may understand her greatest foe.”
The microwave binged. Ryan opened it and tore the shrink wrap off the chuck. He considered tearing into it right there, but it wasn’t a cut of beef that his human teeth could cope with easily. The connective tissues had to be softened.
Sauri was staring at the meat, his eyebrows climbing in wonder.
“It’s a microwave. It heats food.” Ryan sighed and set the chuck aside.
“You are hungry. Eat!”
There was something about the tone of command in Sauri’s voice. Ryan responded on auto-pilot. He snatched the steak from its tray and passed it between his lips. His teeth clamped down on it and bit into the juicy, slightly-warm slab and he pulled on it with his hands, snarling at how slippery it was to hold on to.
The tang of blood against his tongue ignited the spark of his hunger, and he dug his fingernails into the chuck, growling while he worked it back and forth over his teeth, trying to tear a piece off. When it finally ripped free he swallowed without chewing, and he felt alive; truly, irrevocably alive.
He learned from the first mouthful. He worked with his canines to pin the meat, to pierce it, so that when he pulled it gave way. Once his technique improved he devoured the entire piece one bite at a time, and he didn’t pause to chew any of it.
Something deep inside him was satisfied with this feral approach. It calmed him, like he’d somehow placated a dangerous beast.
Sauri grinned at him. “There. That is better, yes?”
Ryan felt as though he were surfacing from another dream. A dream where he ate raw meat like that was a normal thing to do.
His hands felt cold and damp, so he looked at them. They were covered in pink smudges where blood had squeezed from the chuck. His forearms had trails of it down to his elbows.
Fuck. He looked like some crazed serial killer.
Reality crashed in. He was standing in his kitchen with a werewolf, and he’d just consumed a pound of raw beef fresh out of the freezer.
“Oh shit.” He began to back toward the door. “I’m going crazy. This can’t be happening.”
Sauri blinked and shook his head. “This is happening.”
“Shut up. Shut up!” Ryan turned on his heel and strode out of the kitchen. “Shit. I need time. I need to think. This is insane.”
He sped to the bathroom and wished he hadn’t.
His mouth, his chin, were smeared with blood. Some had even made it to his cheeks.
“Oh god. Beef. I think it’s genetically different enough that raw is okay. I mean, you get it blue in restaurants, and I’m not pregnant or breastfeeding or anything…” He ran the faucet until the water was hot, and rinsed the blood from his hands and arms. “It’s okay. I’m okay. There’s a werewolf in my apartment-”
“There are two-”
“Not helping!” He huffed and squirted soap foam into his palm. The lemon scent was sharp, artificial, but it helped him focus. He smothered it over his bloodstained face and wiped it all away with a wet facecloth, then soaped his hands and arms. When he was satisfied, he wiped the top of the hand soap plunger, turned the faucet off, and dropped the facecloth in the laundry basket.
Sauri filled the doorway with his presence, if not his bulk.
Ryan’s gaze was drawn to him. “Why are you here? Like, I get you had to leave. But why did you come toward a city?”
“I was badly wounded. I could not travel into the territory of another pack or they would hunt me down and kill me. I was unable to defend myself adequately. This was the only place I could be safe until I knew where to go.”
“You thought a city was safe?”
Sauri met his eyes and didn’t answer.
Ryan shook his head. He grabbed a towel and patted himself dry, again careful to avoid poking his injuries. “I couldn’t survive out in the forest,” he said quietly. “I think most people who boast that they could probably couldn’t. And I think a city’s more dangerous than you give it credit for.” He sighed and stepped toward Sauri, only stopping when their chests touched.
Sauri lifted his chin, and Ryan saw the pride in his enchanted eyes.
“You don’t even know how an elevator works,” Ryan said, smiling slightly. “The world is incredibly complex. Cities are unpredictable even if you do understand them.” He lifted his chin to Sauri’s shoulder and rested it there.
Sauri’s body was warm. It fit him perfectly. They were made to go together, and when Sauri placed his hands on Ryan’s waist, Ryan’s butterflies rose like a phoenix.
“Then you will teach me,” Sauri said. He sounded so sure.
Ryan exhaled slowly and his eyelids drooped. His panic had begun to subside, and now there was simple acceptance in its wake. “Fine,” he murmured. “Okay. When I get back.”
Sauri’s head tilted, and his lips pressed to Ryan’s ear. “Where are you going?”
The soft touch of Sauri’s lips coupled with hot breath flowing over Ryan’s ear made him shiver. “I need some fresh air. I’m going to go for a walk.”
“I will come with you.”
He wanted to protest - to tell Sauri that it was him Ryan needed space from - but the words died in his throat. He nodded. “Okay.”
Sauri released him, and Ryan felt like he’d been cast adrift. It worsened when Sauri walked away from the bathroom door, away from Ryan.
Ryan huffed and strode toward the door. This evening was far too damn confusing. All he knew was it’d hurt to try and sit, and he couldn’t stand up all night. At least walking would give him a chance to think without wondering how long he could resist his raw, animal need for Sauri’s body.
He snatched his keys from the bowl and stepped out, waiting on the doormat like a good boy until Sauri was with him.
Chapter Six
Sauri’s scars tingled as they slowly healed. They were still not gone, and now that he and Ryan were walking through the human city in silence their tingling was adding to his overall irritability. The moon was risin
g, too; the sky was growing dark. It was times like these that a strong Alpha was required to prevent a pack from tearing itself apart. Otherwise rising tempers and increased passions could overrun them all.
He’d been reckless and he was lucky to be alive, but this was the wrong time of month to be stranded. Few lone wolves could survive more than a few passes of Luna’s full gaze. She did not like her children to grow weak.
If he was to survive, he would have to find the strength to keep himself in check, and to save Ryan from his own wolf when the time came.
He would have to become their Alpha.
How could he do that when Ryan held the key to their survival? The strange city-wolf knew nothing of shifters or of himself, and yet he had a keen intelligence and he understood the way of the humans so well that he believed himself to be one of them. Without Ryan, Sauri would not survive here; this place was as dangerous as the forest, of that he was certain. He had been fortunate so far - first in meeting Ed and now Ryan - but to rely on luck was to evade responsibility.
How was it that Ryan came to be here, so late to his first change and with no knowledge of what he was? He said that he had been born in the city. Were his parents shifters?
Or were all those words Ryan had used somehow the key? Could it be possible that some shifters had mated with humans and now shifters could be born of human parents? It made no sense to Sauri, but Ryan had spoken as though it fit in with some knowledge of the world that was obvious to him. Sauri could smell a storm long before it was overhead and he could predict whether a season would be good or bad for food depending on whether certain plants had flourished earlier in the year, but he did not know what “genetic” was. Ryan had devices like the “freezer” and “microwave” which performed impossible feats and went some way to explaining how the humans could multiply so much; they were able to store food even when it was hot outside and they could take the cold out of it when they desired to eat. Control over what and when they ate, along with the healing offered by hospitals, were astonishing achievements.
No wonder the Graypelts would steal human devices. But that meant that the Graypelts were comfortable entering the human areas to take things.
Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 26