by J. L. Wilder
Before my eyes, Caine rippled with the shift, and I watched with wonder and excitement as he transformed into an enormous, sand-colored Wolf with darker streaks of brown around his muzzle. He was hulking, easily the largest Wolf I’d ever seen (and I’d seen some pretty damn big Wolves).
His nose jerked toward me, indicating that I should join him in the shift. I didn’t need to be told twice. I reached within myself, calling on that ancient force, and in moments, felt that familiar elongation of the bones.
I was Wolf. And so was he.
We didn’t have the telekinetic link of packs—after all, I was more a guest than a pack member—but I didn’t need to hear his thoughts to know what he wanted to do. Because it was the same thing I wanted to do: Run.
We took off through the woods, Caine in the lead. I was fast, but he was much, much faster. Chalk it up to my years in captivity, I guess, but my competitive nature still urged me on, until some ten miles or so later, I found myself stopping by a stream, dipping my nose into the water to cool down.
Caine must have sensed my pause, because he immediately stopped in his tracks, turned and loped toward me, his paws leaving enormous prints in the mud. He tilted his head down, and gently butted it into my side, as if to say, ‘Everything all right?’
As much as I cherished being in my Wolf form, this wasn’t a conversation I could have through head butts alone.
I shifted back to my human self, and quickly walked into the river, both to obscure my naked form and to cool down from the sweat of the run. Caine shifted too, and in English this time, asked: “Everything all right?”
I laughed privately to myself, thinking it was funny how his movements as a Wolf telegraphed so obviously to his human thoughts. He hovered on the border between man and Wolf more than most; some were all Wolf, some were all human, and the two sides were separated by a massive shift. Caine seemed to live on the edge, like the Wolf was a constant part of him.
“It’s fine,” I said softly, running my fingertips on the water’s surface and crouching low to hide my chest. “It’s just … I feel so weak. Useless.”
He shook his head, his shaggy hair flopping over his eyes. “You’re fast as hell,” he countered. “I don’t see many omegas who can run like that.”
I sighed. He didn’t get it. “I know, but I used to be faster. Before Brock. And we’ve run, what, ten miles? And I’m already tired. I just want my life back, y’know?”
Caine strode toward the stream and knelt down beside the water’s edge so that he could look into my eyes.
“You’re tough,” he said with a smile. “It’ll come, Emma. Beating yourself up over a thing you couldn’t control isn’t a good use of your time.”
Surprisingly wise words, I thought. From such a goof. Maybe this was the reason Tristan had selected him for a beta—though he seemed brash and foolish, his unexpected intuition and gravitas might make him a formidable pack member.
“Thanks, Caine,” I replied. “You’re pretty good with this whole comforting thing.”
He winked. “Soothing distressed damsels is kind of my calling card.”
Despite myself, I had to laugh. “Do you really think I’m a damsel?”
Again, that serious expression crossed his face. “No,” he responded. “I think you’re an omega. Which means you may well be more powerful than us all.”
Chapter 6
After Caine’s words, I shifted back into Wolf form, not ready to think about the implications of my omega status just then.
Of course, I knew I was special, to put it bluntly; that packs wanted me, and would fight for me tooth and claw. But to think about my position in the shifter world, a world I’d been essentially closed off from for two years … Well, it just about gave me anxiety hives. The more I thought about myself, the more worried I became that other shifters, men like Brock, were thinking about me too. And the more it reminded me that, as decent as the Hell’s Wolves actually appeared to be, there’s an animal inside every man.
Caine taking the lead once more, we ran back to the lair, which was completely concealed beneath packed earth. Only someone who knew it was there could possibly find it; the door was carved into the ground, and hidden beneath carefully grown grass and mushrooms. Why the hell did Tristan assume Brock would find us? Was it an abundance of caution, or as Daniel had noted, was it just paranoia? Had I fallen in with a madman?
We shifted back, grabbed the blankets we’d left lying nearby, and reentered the HW lodgings.
“She’s all yours,” Caine called to Daniel as we walked into the living room.
Daniel was sitting on the couch, coloring in what appeared to be more maps for Tristan, who himself was positioned approximately where we’d left him—hunched over documents, planning and plotting.
“Hello,” Daniel murmured, looking up from his drawings. “How was your run?”
“Awesome,” Caine replied, with a little inexplicable smugness. “Totally awesome.”
Daniel turned to me. “Well, Emma? Was it ‘awesome’?”
Something about the way his dark green eyes penetrated me made the words in my throat run dry, as though he was staring past my face, into my brain, and communicating directly with the neurons buzzing around.
“Emma?” Caine asked, sounding wounded that it was taking me so long to reply.
“It was great,” I told Daniel, the words tumbling out after I managed to make it past the dam effect created by his eyes. “It was nice to be outside, running free, after so long.”
Needless to say, both men noticed that the part of the training I highlighted was the activity itself, not Caine’s company. I’m just trying to keep this neutral, I wanted to scream. There was no way to show favoritism toward any of the men in the pack. In my experience, an omega in a closed setting who indicated attraction could start a damn riot. And my situation was precarious enough without infighting, thank you very much.
Caine tried to plaster on a grin, but it was forced. Daniel’s eyes were scanning my face, as if to memorize it for a later portrait.
“All right,” Daniel said at last. “Let’s get to survival techniques.”
“I could keep you guys company,” Caine volunteered. “You know, moral support.”
Daniel shook his head, polite but firm. “I think we’ll be fine by ourselves. Isn’t that right, Emma?”
I found myself agreeing with Daniel, the words and gestures not my own, almost as if they’d been compelled from me by Daniel’s hypnotic eyes. I wondered if he had the ability to put people under his thrall. It was uncommon, amongst Wolf shifters at least, but how else could I explain his dark, magnetic pull? Was it possible … Could this feeling really be my own? The thought made me shiver.
Caine huffed, “Fine, I’ll leave you two to your staring match or whatever. I’ll be in my room.”
With that, he stomped out of the living room, his heavy footfalls petulant. Daniel spared him a backward glance, before returning his gaze to me.
“I’m sorry about Caine,” he said quietly. “He has too many feelings, and doesn’t know what to do with them all.”
That was relatable—or at least, it was once upon a different lifetime. I used to have so, so many feelings, before I became great at tamping them down, shoving them into a box in the corner of my mind and studiously forgetting they existed.
“So,” Daniel said, rising from the couch, unfurling his lanky body like a scroll. “You’re here for survival skills.”
“I’m here to survive.”
He smiled. “I suspect you’re already quite gifted at that, Emma Adams. After all, you made it this far. The average Wolf couldn’t have managed that.”
I shrugged, dodging the compliment. “I’ve been lucky.”
His brow migrated toward his hairline. With a healthy dose of skepticism, Daniel asked, “You’d describe yourself as lucky? Despite everything that’s happened?”
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I? I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere.” My words we
re blunt but fair.
He blinked once, twice, taking in my statement. We were silent, and I waited for him to speak again, but Daniel seemed preoccupied with trying to size me up, to reconfigure his understanding of me based on my own self-evaluation.
At last, anxious to break this heavy, emotional silence, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“So, why are you qualified? To teach survival, I mean.”
His mouth tugged up a fraction of an inch. “You don’t get to be a drifter Wolf without picking up a thing or two. Like you, I’m alive against all odds.”
I suspected that there was a much more extensive story behind that, but I didn’t want to pry. Not this soon, anyway.
Instead, I said, “Okay. Then I want to know what you know.”
With that, we set to work. Daniel warned me that these techniques would require study and practice, both reading and hands-on, and I agreed to put in the time. Not like I had much else to do inside this bunker. Besides, I’d barely been allowed to read books under Brock’s watch. The chance to just learn was a gift to be savored.
We started simple, learning how to make a fire. Theoretically, in my Wolf form, I wouldn’t really need the comfort of a fire—the fur would keep me warm, I could eat raw meat with my razor sharp teeth, and my stomach was more resistant to the particles in unpurified water. But living as Wolf for more than a couple of hours is disorienting; you start to become more animal than human.
I know guys that do this on purpose. Brock’s men, to be specific. They think that, the more time they spend as bears, the more proficient they’ll be when the hunt is upon them. In reality, it makes them less human, more likely to violent outbursts.
All this to say, fire matters.
“Shouldn’t we head outside to do this?” I asked Daniel as he set up a mini pyre on the kitchen table.
“It’s challenging enough in a stable climate,” he murmured, eyes concentrating on the erect pieces of wood. “If we practice outside, where it’s damp and windy, you’ll have a harder go of it.”
“Makes sense.” I rubbed my hands together, practicing the familiar motion I’d seen in cartoons.
Daniel looked at my hands. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready to start a fire,” I replied. “Obviously.”
He contained a laugh, saying only, “That’s not going to do you much good.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a novice,” he explained patiently. “It’ll take you five hours to light a fire like that. At best. More likely, it’ll never get lit.”
I put my hands on my hips, a bit miffed at the implication. “I can figure it out. I just need practice, right? Besides, it’s not like I can carry matches on my fur or anything.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. “So, here’s another solution.”
He slipped his hand into one of his black pockets, similar to the ones on my own pants (which made sense, I suppose, seeing as they belonged to the same owner). From the pocket, he produced two angular, metallic objects.
I stared at them a moment, before relenting. “Okay, I give up. What are those?”
Daniel smiled, rubbing the objects with his fingers, and explained, “They’re flint and steel. You can use them to help you light a fire.”
“But what about when I’m a Wolf?” I asked, drawing out each word as though he were slow. “Wolves don’t have pockets.”
This elicited a short laugh from Daniel, a sound I found myself treasuring like it was a semi-precious gem.
“Astute observation,” he commented. “But not what I had in mind.”
He reached back into his pocket, pulled out a thread and looped it through a notch in the flint and steel, creating a long necklace. Daniel stepped forward, and on instinct, I knelt my head as he pulled the jewelry over my hair, past the sensitive nape of my neck, into the hem of my tee, until finally, it came to rest just above my belly button. The string tickled the smooth skin between my breasts, and I gasped.
I felt, for a moment, strikingly intimate with Daniel; the way his hands gently brushed my hair aside was like a symphony of motion, starting pianissimo and then crescendoing.
He moved back to surveil the necklace—or at least, the portion of it that wasn’t hidden beneath my shirt. My sudden awareness of that part of my body seemed to make me also more aware of Daniel’s presence, as though I’d been awoken.
“Is that comfortable?” he asked.
All I could manage was a small nod.
“Good. It should be long enough that the string won’t snap when you shift into Wolf form.”
“Okay,” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper. “Thanks.”
“Now, let’s teach you how to use them.”
I took a breath, trying to pull myself out of Daniel’s orbiting allure, and focus on the task at hand. It wasn’t easy.
Over the next two hours, we practiced lighting a fire with my newfound goodies. I tried not to be discouraged when I realized I was absolute crap at fire-starting. Daniel murmured encouragements the entire time, urging me to be patient, that all skills worth having take time. If only I could have his optimism, I thought with envy.
Tristan had said we had a month. Based on how remote and camouflaged our base appeared to be, we could have longer. But what happened if something went awry with the boys? Though they’d been friendly, they each struck me as their own individual powder keg, constantly on the verge of explosion. What if I didn’t have to run from Brock, but from them? Then, I’d need to know stuff like fire-starting sooner rather than later.
But, despite my fears, Daniel was a good teacher; he never spoke a word he didn’t need but that only served to make each one feel more important than the last. Me, I tend to run my mouth when I’m nervous. I wished I had his ability to speak only when needed. Maybe that was his coping mechanism, though. The same way I spoke too much, perhaps Daniel spoke too little out of a hardwired necessity. He had mentioned being a drifter, something unusual for a Wolf his age (drifters were usually very young, or very old), and being a survivor. What wasn’t he telling me?
All in good time, I reminded myself. Prying wasn’t a great way to thank your hosts.
Daniel had just wrapped his hand around mine, trying once again to show me how to strike flint, when Tristan entered from another door, which led either to his room or the garage. God, this place was confusing.
“Lesson’s over for the day,” he announced abruptly, his eyes flickering to Daniel’s hands on mine. “You can resume tomorrow.”
Daniel interrupted, “But—”
“I said enough,” Tristan commanded, his voice more metallic than the steel in my grasp. “You’ll have time tomorrow.”
Daniel inhaled, a breath so quiet I was sure only I had heard it. He appeared to hesitate for a moment, deciding whether or not to challenge Tristan’s authority, before finally replying, “Fine.”
The men stared at one another; they didn’t seem angry, not exactly, more like they were sizing one another up, for when the time came. What was this about? Were they competing for who had more skills and prowess? Or worse, and what I suspected to be the truth—were they competing for me?
I couldn’t contemplate the thought, so I quickly, in too loud a voice, asked, “So, what’s next?”
“Next,” said Tristan, breaking from Daniel’s hypnotic gaze, “is food.”
“I love food,” I replied, the words coming out of my mouth before I could stop them. It was true, I did love food, but mostly, I was trying to fill the silence so the men would cease looking at each other with such fervor.
“How unusual of you,” Tristan muttered, before turning to the kitchen.
“I meant—”
“Caine!” he called out, his voice booming. I should’ve been offended by how he’d cut off my sentence, but instead, I was grateful he’d prevented me from saying another asinine thing. “Dinner time!”
The door to Caine’s bedroom flung open, and he bounde
d into the room in a heather gray, long sleeve shirt and black pants. Well, it wasn’t as delicious as when he’d been naked, but the shirt didn’t do bad things for him either.
“Yum,” Caine bellowed, moving toward the kitchen. “Gang way, folks, I’m cooking up something delicious for Emma’s homecoming.”
“It’s not a homecoming,” I corrected him. “This is temporary.”
“Let Caine have his fun,” Daniel whispered into my ear. “He’s a wretched cook, but he likes making elaborate meals. Best not to fight him.”
“He gave me cereal earlier. It was stale.”
Daniel nodded grimly. “That’s about as good as it gets.”
Speaking of—Caine was already bopping around in the kitchen, opening various cabinets and turning on the stove. Tristan had wisely cleared out of his path, migrating to the couch near Daniel and me. Instead of flopping into it like a normal twenty-something would, he sat down on the edge of his couch, his back straight, feet planted firmly on the ground.
“You look relaxed,” I said drily.
“I am, thank you,” came Tristan’s reply.
Okay, so, not big on humor. Noted.
“How were your lessons?” Tristan asked. From another man, the question might’ve sounded parental, condescending. From him, it sounded like a general interrogating his soldier.
“They were good,” I told him. “The run was refreshing, even though I’m in mortifyingly bad shape.”
“That’s not true!” Caine called from the kitchen. “She’s super-fast.”
I blushed, and rolled my eyes. “Thanks for lying on my behalf.”
“You’re just being too modest,” he countered.
“Anyway, that was good, and I think I’m on my way to figuring out this whole fire business.” I turned to Daniel. “Right?”
He dipped his head forward. “You’re certainly making progress.”
Not quite as praising as Caine had been, but I’d take it.
“What about my lesson with you?” I pressed Tristan. “About strategy, or whatever?”