The Windigo

by Cynthia Carole

  His thoughts circled back to Cecile. When she had first entered his territory, he had thought little about it. Creatures came and went. So a werebear was wandering through, it was hardly something to grow excited about. She seemed more the local werewolf pack’s problem then his.

  But Cecile had honed in on him—and she had known what he was. That was unusual nowadays. His kind were near extinct. Though there had never been many.

  But here I’ve made one more or have I? Please, Great Spirit, let me control her through her madness.

  As he burst out into another mountain meadow, he saw her pale and lovely in the center of the grass. The sky was now grey-blue and the world was drenched in gloom, but she stood out, her pale skin no longer blended with the dusk. It glowed like snow at midnight. She turned in circles with her slim arms held outward. He could see that somehow she had lost the dried blood of her near-death. Her body gleamed in perfection, though her hair still hung limp to the back of her head. Starlight glittered in her eyes.

  She was so beautiful he caught his breath.

  Her cry shattered the quiet of the forest. Her body shuddered, and the glow surrounding her spread itself out, growing larger. Shifting smears of white pulsed, twirling, sparkling. When the radiant aura solidified, he swallowed back his shock.

  The spectral bear that surrounded her was immense. Far bigger than Cecile, and the monster was white, the same glowing white as arctic snow.

  A fucking polar bear. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But she herself hadn’t changed form. Instead, it was a spirit animal, twenty feet high on its back legs and yet he could see the outline of the silhouetted trees through its massive, shaggy shoulders.

  He found himself frozen as he watched her. Wonder and awe gripped him, a strange thing after his two centuries of life.

  Arlene seemed unaware. She was still lost in her own madness. Unseeing and unhearing, she moved this way and that, the bear shimmering over her, swiveling its head in time with hers. The light of the spirit illuminated the meadow with silver brilliance, as if a second moon had risen. And the girl inside looked so small, and yet not… afraid. The expression on her face was closer to rapture.

  He took a further step into clearing. Whatever she had become it was at least partly his fault. He could see the grass around her turn white with frost. She was not wholly bear or completely his kind. Had Cecile known? Was this what she dreamed for?

  “The problem here is that she wasn’t yet a garou,” Cecile said, her voice tentative. “I hope. For that is not the transformation I had thought it would be.”

  She stood not far from him in human form, her long hair matted and her sharp, but lovely, face twisted with disgust. “That is not a useful bear, I think.” Her black eyes shifted to him. Her heartbeat was steady but fast.

  He held out a hand, as if he were offering to dance with her, and she raised a dark eyebrow and stared back at him with defiance.

  “Cecile,” he whispered her name and caught her will like a man grabbing an apple off a tree. He closed his fist. In one stride, he had the other hand around her neck.

  He squeezed. Could he kill her? He wanted to. He saw again the great bear tearing Arlene’s flesh. He shoved her against the trunk of a tree. The bark cracked, and needles rained down around them. Her neck was rock hard, but he could feel the life in it. If she had been human he would have already killed her. Her pulse danced beneath his grip, and she struggled to draw breath, just as Arlene had.

  His blood boiled with the need to rip her apart, and then…to do what? Eat flesh? Would he give up all his oaths?

  Cecile’s eyes closed. One of her hands struggled past his power, and gripped his arm with her draining strength.

  He threw her to the ground.

  “Run, Cecile. Run away! And don’t come back if you value your life. You can see how easily I caught you.”

  She sucked in one breath after another, and in the meadow, the bear roared.

  They both looked toward Arlene. She was charging them. The meadow froze where her feet landed, the blades of grass turning white and shattering, the ground cracking and popping as frost spread. The bear ran on all fours, while Arlene ran inside its phantasm form. Her eyes shone like blue and gold beacons.

  Cecile tried to stand but Arlene was there. She lifted the other woman with her two hands, one buried in her hair and the other on her leg. The bear roared again, the call reverberating against the stone canyons of the mountains. A wave of cold air washed over Peter, and it was redolent with magic. Frost suddenly clung to his lashes and stuck to his clothing.

  Arlene tossed Cecile, and the other woman sailed for twenty feet before crashing down in the center of the meadow.

  Cecile was up and running immediately. Arlene made some inarticulate sound and gave chase, but she fell within a few steps, her head banging on the ground and hips rocking. She was seizing. The silver glow of the bear winked out, and the night plunged dark around them.

  He knelt beside her and put her head on his lap. When she went still, she lay like the dead and he pressed his cheek to her mouth. “Come on,” he whispered. “Breathe.”

  She didn’t. Her heart faltered.

  “Arlene,” he commanded, his voice reaching out and wrapping about her. “Breathe.”

  For too long, there was nothing. And then, at last, a tiny warmth escaped her lips. His relief choked him. Her heart began a normal, strong rhythm. The finest sound he had ever heard.

  Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her back to his cabin. She lay like the dead. Her skin was warm though, and so soft. Her face, now relaxed of its madness and tension, was the one he remembered. The forest fractured the starlight, and patterns of silver and black crossed her pale skin as he walked, feet nearly silent on the carpet of pine needles. He watched her compulsively, unable to move his eyes.

  In his small cabin, he placed her on the cot. The lamp turned on with a switch, illuminating the small, orderly room and kitchenette with an electric glow. Yanking up the threadbare comforter, he covered her slim, nude body.

  In the gold glow of the manmade light, she appeared vulnerable and human. He could see no trace of the supernatural about her.

  He knelt by the side of the bed and took up her hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly.

  “Peter?” she whispered in a hoarse voice. Her eyes opened and they were once more the color of the summer sky. “What happened? I feel so strange.” Her voice sounded distant and drifting, as if she were medicated or half-asleep.

  How could he answer her? He had no idea what was happening to her. “It’s all right,” he lied. “You’re going to be fine.” He pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

  “Peter?” she moaned. Her body arched. “I feel so peculiar, and I had such dreams—”

  “I know,” he said to comfort her. He caressed her hair back from her face. “But rest now.”

  She pushed the blanket to one side and sat up. “It was a bear!” She crossed her arms and started to rock back and forth. “A bear. It was on the trail.”

  “Yes.” He moved to sit beside her and put a hand on her back. He tried not to think about how smooth her skin was, or how the small muscles moved beneath his fingers. He didn’t know how to comfort her. His own experience of changing had been so different. Well, of course, there had been the terrible violence that followed—but that had come later. The nightmare of the massacre of his mother’s village…his brother slouched nearby eating something that had once been small and human.

  Bile burned his throat at that memory. No. It wouldn’t be that way for Arlene. He wouldn’t allow it.

  She crawled onto his lap, curling up in his arms and pressing her face to his neck. “My body is odd,” she murmured. “Cold and yet hot too. Peter, was there a bear? I remember…I saw my blood and skin and oh, God, my guts. I think I saw my guts.” Sobs shook her and he held her tightly.

  “It’s over. It’s all over, sweetheart. Don’t think about it.” Such meaningless words. He knew f
rom experience she would think about it for uncounted years. How could she not?

  She stared into his face. He tried to ignore the feel of her naked bottom on his thighs, of how her breasts touched his shirt. The fact that he was getting aroused when she was in such a state disgusted him.

  “But it happened,” she said, eyes wide. “Didn’t it? So, why am I here? Why am I alive?” She glanced down at her flawless skin. “No. Look at me. I don’t have a single scratch. Am I going crazy?”

  “No.” He didn’t know how to tell her, or even what to tell her. She was something new, something he hadn’t seen before. He thought of the spectral bear and put his hands on her shoulders. “Arlene, the bear that attacked you was a shifter. Like your werewolves in the valley.”

  She blinked. Her mouth opened slightly, and then closed. She stood up and grabbed the blanket, draping it across her shoulders. Her movements were quick and graceful, and perhaps more fluid than they had once been. Was that a gold gleam in her blue eyes? He frowned, watching her. Six steps took her from his living space to the kitchenette and then back. The two-person table in his kitchen area was under the window and his reading chair was near the cot to one side. Otherwise there was little furniture to trip her up, and she stalked back and forth while clutching the blanket to her chest.

  “I know I’m different. I feel different. Am I changing into a bear?” Her voice squeaked on the last word, her blue eyes widening.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Arlene, there’s more to tell you—”

  “I don’t want to hear it right now.” She strode toward him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m so…confused. And hot. And cold.” She threw aside the blanket and stared at him as if he were prey. Hunger tightened her expression. Before he could stand, she was on him, and though he was prepared to throw her aside, she only pressed her face to his neck. She breathed in his scent. Her legs straddled him, gripping his hips and her arms—her inhumanly strong arms—held his shoulders.

  Her musky scent aroused him, and his staff stiffened in his pants as her blue-gold eyes became hooded. Her thick lashes fanned her cheeks, and her full lips parted, pink tongue darting out to lick at the corners. She huffed out a breath she had been holding.

  “Peter. Please. I think I’m going to explode if I don’t have you.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Arlene was shocked by her own bold and shameless behavior. But the need to touch flesh to flesh, to feel Peter moving against her was compulsive—it was how she had always imagined drug addiction would be like. She pressed closer, the warm skin of his neck calling to her. Rubbing her cheek against the bare skin at his collar, she inhaled his scent. The power of that masculine perfume sending a shockwave down between her breasts, over her clenched stomach and right to the spot between her legs. God, she wanted him.

  He moved, and she felt his arousal bulging beneath his pants. She tightened her grip on him with her legs, the roughness of his pants against her sensitive skin made a small moan escape her lips. She wanted to rub on him, squirm on his lap and run her teeth down the skin of his neck. Such crazy, slutty thoughts brought heat to her cheeks, but it was a wildness in her blood that exalted…laughed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to gather up the shreds of her self-control. “I don’t know what’s come over me.” But her mouth curved in a feral smile. “I just want to eat you up.” She laughed. “Am I insane? Have I gone mad?”

  Peter put a large, calloused hand underneath her bare bottom and stood up. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. “Arlene, there’s nothing you should apologize for,” he said with kindness in his pale-blue eyes. His black hair fell in soft waves around her arms, like a curtain of silk. It was something she would have thought of as feminine, but there was nothing womanly about Peter. His exotic face was lined with tension, and his soft lips were so close to hers, she nearly kissed them without thinking.

  He stood there, hands on her taut flesh, and seemed to be lost as well. A muscle jumped in his cheek, and his eyes grew lustful. His breath caressed her face as he leaned closer. He was going to kiss her. She almost cried in relief.

  But he didn’t. He took a deep breath instead. “I’m not going to take advantage of you, Arlene.”

  “Why the hell not?” She gripped him harder.

  He shook his head and carried her into the bathroom. Setting her down on the rug by the bath, he untangled her limbs without much help from her. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, watching him as he plugged the tub and turned on the water. Steam rose almost immediately. The undulating waves curled and drifted up into the invisible air currents. “I should be dead,” she said, half-dreaming. Was she dead? But if this was Heaven than why was there a spider making a web behind the toilet and a dead fly underneath the sink? Peter wasn’t that great a housekeeper. The thought made her want to laugh.

  Perhaps, I’m hysterical.

  Why wasn’t Peter making love to her?

  She wrinkled her nose.

  Peter turned off the water and lifted her again as if she were a child. He put her in the tub and she made a weak protest as the warm water enveloped her. Why was she letting him treat her like she was two? But the hot water soothed aches she didn’t even know she felt. She watched her pale skin turn pink in the heat.

  When Peter began to wash her hair, his hands were gentle. He leaned in close and she nearly purred like a cat with tuna. God, he had wonderful hands. The shampoo, a rosemary and mint mix washed her in scent. She closed her eyes. His strong fingers caressed her scalp, working back then forward.

  “Peter?” she asked, her thoughts drifting with the steam. Was the thumping sound she heard his heartbeat? Had it always been so loud?

  “Arlene,” he answered in his deep, resonating voice. God, she loved his voice. She thought maybe that was the first thing she had been attracted to.

  “Are you a shifter too?”

  He was something. Otherwise how had he scared off the bear? And he knew about Creed and the werewolves in the valley. How had he known that? She frowned as she opened her eyes and gazed at him.

  “Ready to rinse,” he said and poured a plastic pitcher of water over her head.

  “So are you a bear too?” she asked, rubbing the water from her eyes.

  He shook his head. “I’m something else.” He lifted up a sponge and began to rub it over her body slowly. It brushed the tips of the breasts and then down her flat stomach.

  “What are you?” she asked softly, watching the movements of the sponge as he drew it down one of her legs.

  He was silent for so long, she nearly asked again. At last, he spoke as he began on the other foot. “Have you heard the legend of the windigo? It’s usually referred to as Native American myth.”

  “Windigo?” She sounded out the strange word. “Maybe. Something about a ghost in the woods that eats people?” She remembered some television show or book where the creature was the boogeyman.

  “That’s close. It varies. Usually it’s said to be a monster that calls to humans when they’re hiking or camping. They come to its voice and find a monstrous creature with foul breath and a long tongue. It lives on human flesh.”

  She stared at him, feeling cold. Chilled. She remembered her dream of the silver angel. “Are you—”

  “My father was a French fur trapper and my mother was part of local tribe that lived north of here. This land was only called the Northwest Territory then, it was mostly wilderness from California to Alaska, with scattered tribes and villages along the coast.”

  “Are you saying that you were born…before Washington became a state?” She crossed her arms and stared at him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t met supernaturals before… but she had thought only vampires and demons were immortal.

  He met her gaze with his chill blue eyes. “I’m saying I was born about thirty years after Lewis and Clark made their famous trek. My father was an explorer—though he wrote no books and never returne
d from his travels to tell his tales.” He gave a sad smile. “After living with my mother’s tribe for a year, he built a cabin for himself further into the wilderness. He was a solitary man but he wanted to provide a home for his wife and children. And soon, he had two boys and a good business trapping and trading with the local tribes.”

  “You had a brother?” she asked and saw the bleak grief enter his expression. The pain in his eyes hurt her. Her arms longed to hold him, comfort him. But for what? She didn’t know.

  Her stomach rumbled instead.

  A smile came to his too-serious face. “We had better feed you. Come on.” He reached to help her out, but she shook her head.

  “I want to hear your story, Peter. Please.”

  “Arlene, you don’t understand. You had better eat or the madness might come back.” Against her protests he picked her up out of the tub, sloshing water on the floor and over his shirt. The chill invigorated her. She suddenly was full of energy, and she wiggled out of his arms to stand on her own two feet. He handed her a towel, but she didn’t take it. She was too busy staring at the way his wet shirt clung to his muscled chest.

  A different kind of hunger stirred once more.

  He wrapped the towel around her and began to dry her off, not meeting her eyes. She let him. The vigorous movement of the terry cloth over her naked skin felt wonderful. He knelt to dry her legs, running the towel up her thighs and nearly to her small patch of curls at the junction.

  Need uncoiled from her belly like a warm, hot snake. This was not like the bashful, half-embarrassed lusts she had felt before. This one filled her, brought a haze to her eyes, made her mouth water like a starving man sitting down to a feast. When he stood up, he didn’t meet her eyes. “I’ll get you a steak…” he began.

  She blocked his escape though, moving to the doorway faster than she would have thought possible. “I need something else first,” she said in a low, growly voice.

  “Arlene, this isn’t you. It’s the transformation in your blood.”