My Two Wolves: A Paranormal Menage Romance (Double Desert Shifters Book 2)

by Mia Wolf

  “I can't get her out of my mind,” I said finally. “I feel like we messed up. We messed up in a big way. I don't know that we can fix this. But the only thing that I do think about is useless ways to try.”

  “I know, that's what's been on my mind too.” Jordan withdrew his feet from the water and brushing the pebbles from his skin he stood up. “I keep having these crazy thoughts about Emily.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand that was wet from brushing the water from his legs. “I keep thinking that maybe she is our mate.”

  “I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought the same,” I said.

  “The idea that we blew it with our mate,” he began slowly. “That idea is too painful for me to bear.”

  “What do we do?”

  Jordan was saying everything I had been thinking for the last two weeks, ever since we'd been back from San Francisco. Now that I was hearing it, I wanted to unhear it.

  “I don't know what we can do, bro.”

  I picked up some of the pebbles around me and began throwing them into the river, skipping some, but mostly tossing them. I liked watching the current of the slow-moving stream carrying the ripples down the way as if washing them away, as if they had never been there. Perhaps that's what our excursion to San Francisco was. Little ripples that were being washed away by time, as if they had never been there to begin with. What if none of this ever actually existed at all?

  “I have to get out of here,” I said abruptly. I stood up, grabbed my shoes and socks from the riverbed, and headed back to my cabin, leaving Jordan beside the water.

  I flung open the door to my cabin, not really sure what to do with myself now. I couldn't sit doing nothing, not while these thoughts were going through my head. I didn't want to be in the settlement anymore. I couldn't be in the compound just seeing her, going about her business, as if nothing had happened. The whole thing was absolute torture to me.

  As soon as the sun went down, I told myself, I would go out for a run. I just needed to get out of Moonstone for a little. I felt confined. I needed to set my head on straight. Perhaps a good run would be the remedy.

  ***

  I could smell meals being prepared in the various cabins around Moonstone as I left my own cabin, completely naked. It wasn't uncommon to see people running around unclothed within the pack. None of us could shift with our clothes on, or at least not comfortably. If we did, it would result in a lot of torn clothing. That's why cubs were so difficult and expensive to raise. While they were still learning to use their shifting ability, they tore so many clothes. It was pretty rare to find hand-me-downs when it came to cub clothing.

  I didn't want to be seen tonight, however. I didn't want anyone around. Tonight was about getting my head straight, and I needed no questions; I needed no influence from anyone else. I just needed to run.

  I made my way to the riverbed, allowing my feet to dip into the water again. I don't know what it was about the water that was drawing me so much today and had been for the last few weeks, but all I wanted to do was just be there and be a part of it. I walked noisily upstream in the shallows of the river until I reached the end of the edge of the compound. There I shifted, with all four paws in the water, as I reached my Wolf form.

  Instinct took form, and I found that my hunger, my Wolf hunger, began to rumble in my stomach. It wasn't that I was hungry, because I had eaten in my own home before going. However, the Wolf side of me was always hungry, always ready to go for the hunt. If I was honest with myself, the hunt was what I wanted.

  I never hunted on my own. But tonight, I needed my own company. I hadn't told Jordan that I was going for a run. I hadn't let anyone else know that I was going out of the compound. While it wasn't explicitly against the pack agreement, it was always strongly advised against. A loose rule of safety suggested that a shifter should never go out alone, or if they did feel the need to, that someone else within the pack should be informed. Anything could happen in the desert or any wilds for that matter. Most of the wildlife was nocturnal and thus was out hunting, too. But tonight, I didn’t want to feel safe. I didn’t think I really wanted to be safe, even.

  I ran through the trees and out of the oasis that encompassed Moonstone. A hill rose behind it, over which the river flowed down and into our reservoir. I stopped halfway up the hill to look back at the view of the compound. Through small clearings in the trees, fires could be seen. A big fire was built in the community center, as it was every night. A communal meal was made for those who wanted it, though most of us stuck to our own homes unless there was cause for a special ceremony.

  The light of the fires sparkled over the river, creating a shimmering streak through to the south side of the compound to the reservoir. The lingering human part of my mind wondered where Emily was in the scene below though was soon shut down by my Wolf part, who took off running up the hill again.

  The fresh desert air filled my senses, and I knew this was what I needed. My muscles working to carry me up the slope, my tail feeling the cool of the air through my thick fur, I felt free, if only for a moment.

  That moment was halted at the sight of a pack of coyotes.

  They were there, at the top of the hill, all of them looking down at me as I charged upward. How had I not seen them? How had I not smelled them? And what were they doing?

  I stopped in my tracks, wondering if they were friends, foe, or wild coyotes. I couldn’t smell them at all. I was upwind from them. Which meant they could smell me. If they were wild and smelling me, then they had no reason to stay in place. While wild animals could be a problem to a lone shifter, they generally sensed there was something different in us than other animals and avoided us. This pack made no effort to do so. This pack must be shifters.

  I felt my hackles raise on the back of my neck, my tail curling upward as I pushed myself harder up the hill, a growl erupting from my throat.

  They watched, unmoving, until I was within twenty yards of them, of the peak. The pack scattered, running down the back of the hill.

  By the time I reached the top, they were too far away to catch up to, especially since the run up the hill had taken so much of me.

  I huffed a bark at them, though it was only audible to me. I sniffed at the air though gained little information. They were shifters, alright. The scent of their presence was all that lingered where I stood. Who they were, though, was a complete mystery to me. I thought but couldn’t recall hearing about any local packs in the area. We were fairly isolated from other shifter communities.

  I tried to follow the scent, but the light breeze was carrying it away faster than I could find it. Within moments, I’d lost the scent altogether.

  Chapter 11 – Emily

  “Okay, guys,” I called out to the cubs who were slowing down with the heightening sun. “Time to pack things up for lunch.”

  I was struggling with the day. We had been back for a couple of weeks, and I still couldn’t quite get back into the swing of things. Andrea had done her best to take some of the load off my shoulders and was even staying at my place some nights just to keep me company, but I just felt constantly drained.

  That’s something they don’t mention about let down. When you feel it, you feel it hard, and it zaps everything from you. I felt as though a stool had been taken out from under me while I was trying to reach for the sugar. I didn’t realize that I had felt so much for my idea of who Jordan and Max were that to know otherwise would hurt me this badly.

  Andrea moseyed up to the water station while I slumped against a tree and watched the cubs put everything away. I was going to have a lot to clean up when they were done, but I didn’t have the energy to direct them, to tell them what they needed to remember to do so that I didn’t have to do it when they left.

  “How’s today going for you?” Andrea asked.

  “About the same as the rest of them,” I mumbled. It annoyed me that that was the only answer I had fo
r her. It annoyed me more that it was true. “You know, I thought that once I got back to the pack, got back into my normal routine, that things would smooth out. But they haven’t. I still feel terrible, and everything just gets on my nerves now.”

  She wrapped her arms around my shoulders from the side and squeezed, trying to give me a comforting hug. I put my hand on her arm going across my chest in a half-hearted acknowledgment. Andrea was my best friend for a reason. She was always there to comfort me whenever I needed it. She was always there to give me silent company when nothing else would do. Most of all, she knew when I was angry at her, I wasn’t really angry at her.

  Over the last couple of weeks since being back, I’d gone through a rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts—one of which blamed Andrea for the whole thing. I had growled it; I had yelled it; I had sobbed it: Andrea was the reason Jordan and Max wanted to sleep with me. She had changed my clothes and forced me to look different. When I looked different, they noticed me and turned their bro-ness toward me.

  Every time I made my accusation and pointed the finger of blame at her, Andrea took it with a stride. She knew it was just me getting my emotions out, trying to process whatever was in my head. By the end of every accusation, she reminded me that I was speaking from a place of hurt, not a place of logic or understanding. And every time, she gave me a shoulder to cry on.

  It wasn’t just my understanding of who Jordan and Max were that had me so upset. It was that I didn’t know that I trusted myself to know anything else. If I’d been so wrong about these two guys that I had spent so much time with growing up, then what else was I wrong about?

  It was this persistent thought that dogged me while I was working with the cubs, while I was monitoring and measuring the water, and while I was going about any of my business. I didn’t feel comfortable in handling the money, in doing the math revolving around the pack’s expenditures. With every task I took on, I had a voice in the back of my head saying, “but do you really know what you’re doing enough to be trusted with this?”

  The thought was what knocked me down. It was what kept me drained at the water station with the cubs and unable to really have my heart into what I was doing. I felt like I was a fraud and that no one had any business leaving me with an important task like teaching the cubs about the single most important element of the pack’s survival in the desert: water.

  The last of the cubs tested all the nozzles and hoses going to and coming from the water station to ensure there were no leaks before running off to join her friends.

  “So,” Andrea started, drawing out the word. I closed my eyes. I knew she was going to come out with something that I didn’t want to hear. “I talked to the guys.”

  “What guys?” I played dumb.

  “You know who I mean,” she said. “Those who won’t be named.”

  I grunted. “Why?”

  “Because they have something to say to you that’s really important, and you won’t let them, so I’m their next best thing.”

  “Are they trying to bed you now?” I questioned sarcastically.

  “Of course not. Em, they seem really genuine, you know.”

  “I know they do,” I sighed. I slid my back down the tree into a sitting position. “But it isn’t real.”

  “What if it is?”

  “It’s not, though.”

  It was Andrea’s turn to grunt. She lifted her flowing skirt and sat in the grass next to me. “You’re being ridiculous. Okay, so they were partiers in San Francisco. So what? What does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then why are you so upset?”

  I huffed. I had told her this so many times, and yet she still didn’t understand. “Because that’s not who they are here. I saw who they were in the city, and they seemed more genuine then than they ever have here. The guys they are here are a lie. I saw the way they lit up when they were in San Francisco, and that’s who they truly are.”

  “And so what if they are partiers? So what if that’s who they really are?”

  “But that’s not who I thought they were. They’ve basically lied to me for our whole lives. And the worst part of it is that I somehow got caught up in their city persona enough that I slept with both of them. As if they were my mates or something. Andrea, I always said that if I was ever to be with two guys like that, they would be my mates. And what did I do? I dropped that tarty dress you sent me with and jumped into bed with them.”

  Andrea ignored the repeated dig at her clothing that she sent me with, the backhanded blame in her direction, and took my hand in hers.

  I could feel the tears trying to blur my vision. I looked up at the sun through the needles of the spruce and blinked away their formation before they could fully come to fruition.

  “Andrea, I don’t think I’m ever going to find my mates.”

  There. I said it. I didn’t want to say it and had stuffed the idea down every time it started to surface, but now it was out. I worried that the words might seal my fate, that they might mean I was right. There were no mates out there for me.

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “If I was wrong about them, then how can I be trusted to know who I’m destined to be with? Who has fate picked out for me?”

  “I didn’t think you wanted mates,” Andrea said quietly. “You’ve always done your own thing and never really seemed interested in anyone other than the occasional meaningless fling. I thought you were just content being you.”

  “I was.”

  “What changed?”

  “Jordan and Max.” I wiped away the tear that got away. “They are just womanizers. They chew women up and spit them out again. That’s all there is to it. You know, I’m all about scratching an itch, but the way they talked about how they used to treat the girls they hooked up with—how quickly they wanted to get rid of them after they’d done their thing … it’s disgusting. I just don’t think I can be with anyone like that. And I was just one of those women.”

  “Did they try and get rid of you the next day?”

  I shook my head. It was something I’d argued with myself about. Was I really like one of those women if they were so intent on hanging out with me the next day? But every time, I came to the same conclusion. “Why would they? I was the one in charge of the money for the trip.”

  Andrea stroked my hand, trying to comfort me.

  “You know that’s not true,” she said finally.

  “I don’t know what’s true.”

  “I think that if you really listen to yourself, pay attention to the voice that’s under the hurt, then you’ll know the truth. Those guys really want to make things right. They are into you. They think you’re something special.”

  “A little piece of San Francisco brought home,” I replied bitterly. “No, thank you.”

  She sighed and stood up. “I’m going to get some lunch. You can cheer up and come with me, or I can leave you to mope here.”

  My stomach rumbled at the thought of food. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t like the idea of eating, even if Andrea was cooking. But my physiological needs trumped my mood.

  “Fine,” I conceded. “But I’m not smiling.”

  ***

  I had shifted into my Bear form for the night watch that night. After what Max had seen, the Alphas decided that it would be a good idea to have a few of us on guard until we knew more about the pack of shifters roaming the desert.

  My senses were more acute when I was in Bear form. I might not be able to run as fast as the Coyotes or the other Animals patrolling different parts of the compound, but I had the advantage of strength and smell. We Bears had some of the best sniffers in the compound, which was why Alex made sure there was a Bear on each of the newly installed night shifts.

  I had hoped that volunteering for this job might keep my thoughts occupied. Stowing myself away in my Animal form would separate me from my human side, allowing my instincts to have dominance enough to occupy my brain space. I
had thought that since autumn was approaching, the increasing instinct to seek out foods to aid to my winterizing weight would be the prevailing focus along side keeping an eye out for the Coyote packs.

  I was wrong.

  My mind continued to wander toward Max and Jordan, wondering just what it was that they were playing at. It was one thing to go after me in San Francisco, to have their fun there. But we lived here. We were going to need to cohabitate in the compound somehow, and for them to keep pursuing me was only going to make it worse.

  I knew what they wanted, too. It wasn’t that they wanted me. They just wanted to make amends with me, wanted to make sure everything was fine. Maybe they wanted their friend back.

  I wanted my friends back too.

  The pervasive thought repeatedly dominated my cyclical thinking: they weren’t my friends. I had only known part of them, and it was the other part that I wanted nothing to do with. I didn’t think I’d be able to forget the part of them that just wanted to get drunk and sleep with random chicks.

  There.

  There was that smell. That unfamiliar smell that stuck in my nose, it made me think of Victor, the last Coyote we had in the pack. He left a bad taste in my mouth and the mouths of so many in Moonstone. This scent was nearly overwhelming. Memories of him, of what he did to Alex, Lewis, and Sandra during the competition to be Alpha, poked at a raw nerve.

  I let my snout do the directing for me. They were north of me. No, south.

  A sinking feeling swept over me as I realized that I was surrounded.

  No sooner had the thought entered my mind than the smell took over, accompanied by yips and yowls from the encroaching pack. I turned, in my slow Bear way, seeing them rushing at me from behind. I twisted to face them, pushing myself up onto my back legs.

  One immediately jumped into my arms, his jaws snapping for my neck. I squeezed him in a Bear hug, hearing his spine pop as his last breath escaped. I dropped the Coyote, just as another one leaped at me from behind, this one pushing me forward. Another one came at me from the side as I turned to deal with the one behind me. A third one came from behind again, and a fourth was on my right.