by T. S. Joyce
“It’s so strange standing here with you again. You’re…you, but different.”
The snow was falling in earnest again as he canted his head and smiled at me. “Different how?”
“You’re a man now.”
“I was a man then. I was twenty-nine when you left. Old bachelor.”
“Oh, foot,” I cursed gently. “You aren’t old. But now you’re…I can’t put my finger on it.”
“The wolf is different. That’s what you can’t put your finger on. Human senses know there is something wrong, you just can’t understand what.”
Softly, I asked, “What’s wrong with him?”
Ukiah shrugged up a shoulder. “He needs the body all the time. Every night now. Sometimes deep into the day. He will win eventually. He never gives up, and it’s impossible to fight something that never stops hunting you.”
Well, that wasn’t good. That wasn’t a life at all, having to give up his skin so often like that. “Have you talked to your father about it?”
“Yes. And Luke. And Jeremiah. And my cousins. And my grandfather, Kicking Bull, and no one can fix a broken wolf, Maya.” He looked up at the clouds, and his dark brows drew down. “Storm is coming and it’ll be bad tonight.”
“I should get home then,” I told him, turning for the wagon. But before I could climb in, he was there. Just a blur of movement and then he was in front of me. Gads, he was fast now. Much faster than I remembered, or perhaps he’d hidden some of his power in The Before. Before I left for Boston, before I reinvented myself and made a life outside of this place.
“You’re different, too,” he murmured.
Curiosity would someday be the killer of this cat. I should’ve just made my way around him to the other side and got the reins and ushered Lena out of here before the snow really hit, but I wanted to know. I was hanging on every word he said, my heart beating for the chance that he would utter my name again in that deep, silky voice. “How am I different?”
“Your hair is longer,” he said, pulling gently on a curl again. “You’re a woman now.” He traced my collar bone, eliciting a shiver that trembled right up my spine. His light touch travelled down my arm to my wrist, where he gripped it. And then he touched my waist. “You were always a string bean, and now look at you. I bet every man in Boston turned his head when you walked by him. How could they not?”
My cheeks heated when an embarrassing blush, but I was too trapped in his glowing gray eyes to look away and hide it. “There was no one for me in Boston. I confused people with my thick hair, and my skin color, and my light eyes. I might be a trinket to look at, but no man is going to bring me home to his mother. And I didn’t look for one to.”
“Mmmm,” he rumbled. “I think you sell yourself short. I think you are a rare beauty there. If men didn’t approach, it wasn’t because you were unattractive to them.” He snarled up his lip and a feral expression washed through his face. “It was because you intimidate weak men.”
The smile on my face felt so good. What a beautiful thing to get a compliment like that from a person like Ukiah, who didn’t give them easily, and never just to blow smoke. He only said exactly what he meant—nothing more, nothing less.
“Your eyes are the same, and your smile is, too,” he said. “I like that you wear your hair long and down now.”
“I don’t in Boston,” I admitted. “It’s not the style, especially for hair like mine. I always keep it pinned and off my shoulders. I only wore it down today because…” Don’t admit that. Don’t tell him you wore it down because he once told you he liked your hair wild.
He smiled like he already knew what I’d almost said. “Go on inside.” He jerked his chin toward the cabin. “I’ll put the horse in the barn with mine for the night.”
“Oh, I can’t stay the night, Ukiah. What would people say?”
“Maya,” he rumbled, leaning in. Oooooh the shivers on my skin that my name on his lips drew. “Look around. We aren’t in Boston where every move is watched. We’re at the Dawson Ranch, where you have spent a hundred nights. You can have my cabin tonight. I’ll sleep in the woods.”
“In the woods? You’ll freeze to death.”
“The wolf wants the skin,” he said over his shoulder as he made his way to Lena. The horse whinnied and reared the second he got close to her face, but he settled her down. “See?” he asked. “Even this old nag can smell the predator.”
I looked around. There was nothing out here but us and the horse and the snowdrifts. He had a point. This wasn’t Boston, and really, I wasn’t doing anything wrong per say. I was sleeping in a shelter offered by a gentleman on a blustery night. There. Excuses made, I lifted my full skirts and made my way to his front door.
“Ukiah,” I asked before he got too far leading Lena to the barn behind his cabin.
He turned and stopped, waiting. He looked so strong and handsome in the blue evening light. Now this was a Christmas card I wished I could draw. Ukiah in the snow, broad shoulders pressing against that thin cotton shirt, his hair unbraided, the buckskin horse motionless behind him and the wagon. And the woods I’d fallen in love with as a girl.
I wasn’t ready to give him up to the night yet. I liked being around him. Truth be told, I liked myself when I was around him. I liked the person I was with him, and it had been a long time since I’d felt her. That familiarity was addictive. “Will you come inside and warm up for a little while before you Change?” It was selfish of me, and it pushed boundaries, I knew. But I couldn’t help myself. Improper or not, no one was here to shame me, and Ukiah would always keep me and my reputation safe.
He nodded and said, “As you want.”
“Ukiah,” I asked again, before he could leave.
“Yes?”
“You said I was intimidating to men, but you were never intimidated by me.”
“I said you’re intimidating to weak men.” His slow smile was positively wicked before he turned and walked away. Without looking back, he said, “I’m not weak, or a man.”
A long growl punctuated that sentence—a feral reminder to me that Ukiah was so much more than he appeared.
Chapter Four
Ukiah
She was here. Maya was in my cabin, and I felt as if I was walking in a dream. The wolf inside of me was quiet, and watchful. The animal had missed her more than any human man could understand. More than even I understood.
I put Elias’s horse in a stall next to the pair of flashy paint ponies I’d been breaking to earn extra money. They always fetched a pretty penny in town, because I’d built up a reputation for my horses. I was good at this. A better hand at the horses than ranching with my father and uncles. I did that too, though, because it made my father proud, me working beside him.
Maya was really in my cabin.
I fed and watered Elias’s horse and closed the barn door, made my way to the house. I could see her through the window, so I stopped to watch her for a minute. She was walking around the den, hands behind her back, spine straight, shoulders back. Her mother had always stressed manners and being a lady, and proper posture was part of that. It wasn’t until she reached the mantle of my fireplace that she unclasped her hands and reached out to touch something. It was the little glass wolf she’d given me one Christmas. I was never here for the holiday. It wasn’t one the Ute celebrated, and I was always with my grandfather, Kicking Bull, and his people on the reservation during the winters. But Maya always, always saved a Christmas present, and gave it to me when I returned home.
The glass wolf was my favorite, though I’d kept her other ones too. I kept everything.
Beautiful Maya. All of the shadows and highlights on her face were stunning. Her cheek bones, her jaw line, her long, elegant neck. I adjusted myself, and forced my attention to the woodpiles to think of anything other than rucking her dress up her thighs and thrusting into her like a rutting animal. A woman like Maya deserved chivalry, but the things I really wanted to do to her? I would corrupt her completely.
I wanted to. I wanted to hear her panting breath and pleading for more.
Come on, Ukiah. Get your head on straight. The wolf growled inside of me. He liked when I was a beast. Piss off, Wolf. The snarl grew and there it was—the tingling in my fingertips that spread to my hands, wrists, forearms…
The tingling that said I was out of time.
Shit. Helplessly, I looked up at Maya one last time. I wanted to stay here, with her, like she’d asked. I wanted to do anything she asked, but the wolf…the wolf…
I grunted in pain and hit the ground as my body contorted. This was death. I died every night now. Most times, I wondered how anyone could go through such pain and keep breathing. It wasn’t like this before, but now…now…gggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I held onto the vision of Maya’s profile, reaching out for that glass wolf. Beautiful Maya.
Even when she’d been gone, she was the brightest part of my life.
Chapter Five
Maya
Two Nights Before Christmas
Ukiah’s howl would replay in my mind for years to come. It sounded so different than his wolf had before. It rang with a hollowness I didn’t understand. And I’d seen him, out the window. Ukiah’s wolf was gray like Gable’s animal, with dark points to his fur, and those light eyes that seemed to miss nothing. He’d stood in the snow, on the edge of the glow from the window where I stood, his eyes reflecting oddly in the lantern light. Ukiah as a man was captivating, but Ukiah the wolf? The predator was just as intimidating as he was beautiful.
The fabric of my dress shuffled loudly in the early morning silence of Ukiah’s cabin. I couldn’t tie it in the back, and I muttered three atrocious curse words trying. This was the wrong dress to wear out here.
The cabin was big, but it was one giant room, and I’d definitely fallen asleep on his bed while his wolf was out there gallivanting through the night.
The door swung open wide and banked against the wall loudly.
I yelped and grabbed a pillow to defend myself, but there wasn’t any use for it.
Standing in the doorway in a low-cut cotton shirt that showed off her sizeable cleavage, and a tight pair men’s riding pants was none other than Kristina Dawson. “I come bearing gifts!” she announced grandly, holding up a dead bunny by the back feet. “The Injun left it for you.” She strode inside and gave me the biggest, back-cracking hug I’d ever received. She patted me on the back and I tried not to cringe when I felt the bunny touch me.
The poor critter fell to the floor with a soft thud, and Kristina held me back at arm’s length. Her pretty blue eyes narrowed. “This dress won’t catch no man, Maya. I don’t know how they do it with them sissy boys in the city, but out here, you need to show the goods. Men are like fish. Give ’em good bait, and they’ll behave themselves right into commitment.”
“Lord help me,” I prayed quietly to the exposed ceiling rafters, trying to hide my smile.
Kristina Dawson, reformed ex-whore, as the old times used to call them, mate to the most devilish of the three Dawson brothers, Luke Dawson, and proud advocate for ‘showing them teets,’ as she liked to say.
“I don’t think the Ute like being called Injuns,” I told her.
“Well, let Ukiah tell me to stop then.”
I laughed an echoing sound. “Good luck to any man who tells you what to do.” I looked down at the bunny. “Does Ukiah’s wolf always kill bunnies?”
“Nope. Only when you’re around.” She stroked my curly hair and grinned. “Goddamn, it’s good to see you back in these parts. It’s too quiet in town without another scandalous woman stirring up all the rumors. It’s a big job to do on my own.”
My heart dropped. “Stirring up what rumors?”
“You didn’t go home last night, Maya. Elias and Trudy are up at the big house askin’ for you. Everyone in town knows you’re back for the holidays. If anyone saw them heading in this direction in the wagon without you riding shotgun? Well, you’ll be the talk of the town. You’re probably already pregnant with three or four of Ukiah’s babies as we speak.”
“Oh my word,” I murmured, turning. “Can you tie my dress?”
Kristina scrunched up her face. “Boys like dresses untied.”
“Kris!”
“Fiiiiiiine.” She yanked my laces tight enough to whoosh the breath right out of me, and I had to grab onto the bed post to steady myself.
A soft knock sounded at the door. When I looked over my shoulder, Lucianna and Lorelei, the other two Wolf Brides, were bustling in.
Lucianna reached me first, limping deeply, but with a ready smile on her fair lips. She was as light and pale complexed as my mother was dark. I expected a weak hug, but got no such thing.
“I heard you were hurting,” I murmured. “Are you feeling better?”
“Thanks to a delivery from your father first thing this morning, I’m feeling much more like myself.” Sure, she looked tired, but her eyes were dancing as she looked me over. “Someday, Maya,” she said mysteriously.
“Someday, what?”
Lucianna arched her blond eyebrows high. “You’re going to be mine.”
I parted my lips to ask what she meant, but Lorelei pulled me into a hug. “We sure have missed you around here. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” My stomach growled loudly to emphasize that admission and they all laughed, me included. Good gracious, it was so good to be back with them. These women were such a huge part of my upbringing. Almost like three extra secondary mothers.
Kristina finished tying the laces. I couldn’t breathe, which meant she’d done well. Any amount of discomfort for that wasp-shaped waist, I thought sarcastically. Men really were so lucky.
“I have a present for you at the house,” Kristina announced, doing an about face and marching right out the front door.
“If it’s that Christmas-red saloon dress I saw you taking in last night,” Lorelei called, “she doesn’t need your presents.”
“It ain’t a saloon dress!” Kristina called without looking back. “It’s a holiday-themed husband-getting dress.”
Lorelei let off a very human sounding growl and picked up the dead rabbit by the back foot with two fingers. Holding it out as far as she could, she scrunched up her nose and took it out the front door.
Pursing my lips against my laughter, I grabbed my jacket and put it on, then followed the women out into the snowy morning.
And there he was.
I locked my legs against any forward movement and just froze. Ukiah was good at many things, and one of those was trapping a person in that inhuman gaze of his.
“Good morning,” he said low. Behind him, a dapple-gray horse and a black and white paint stomped their feet against the snow and tossed their heads against the reins Ukiah held.
“Remember all the manners your father and uncle taught you,” Lorelei said to him kindly as she passed.
Kristina was hoisting herself over the saddle of a chestnut gelding. “No, forget everything those rambling Dawson’s taught you. They got maybe one total ounce of romance between all three of them. That ain’t how you catch a lady.”
Ukiah grinned back at her. “Uncle Luke caught you just fine and I haven’t heard any complaints since.”
Kristina snorted and kicked her horse as the other two mounted theirs. “You ain’t been listening then. Luke!” she crowed, her voice echoing through the woods. “I’m coming home to you, honey!”
From a distance came an echoing, “Good, cause I can’t find my boots!”
Kristina waggled her eyebrows back at them and stuck her foot out from her stirrups. They sure looked like men’s boots on her feet.
Ukiah and I cracked up laughing. I pulled my jacket closer to keep in all the warmth as I approached.
“I took the wagon and horse back to Elias already,” he said. “Are you ready for one of your presents?”
Utterly shocked, I blurted out, “Presents? Whatever for?”
“For all the Christmases I missed.” H
e pulled the black and white filly toward me.
“You got me a horse?” I asked, petting the beautiful creature on the neck. She turned her head and looked at me with one big soft brown eye, blinking hard. There was a snowflake resting on her long eyelashes.
“She’s yours as long as you’re here,” he said, stepping away from his own horse to lift me into the saddle.
My skirts rustled as I flared them over the paint’s hind end. She pranced a little but settled quickly. I don’t know why, but I loved that Ukiah automatically had me sitting split-legged, instead of side-saddle. He’d never put on airs about what was proper for women. He’d always supported my comfort over manners.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“This is Timber. She’s black and white.” He grinned cheekily at me.
“Black and white like me,” I said, finishing his tease. “Did she remind you of me when you picked her out?”
“Mmm hmmmm. Are you fishing for compliments?”
A sassy smile plastered my face. “I love fishing.”
He chuckled and handed me her reins. “Yes, but not only because she’s a looker. She’s patient, and quick to learn. Very intelligent. Doesn’t make the same mistake too many times and works hard. She’s independent and free-spirited, and she makes me want to be a better trainer when I’m around her.”
Somewhere in the middle, his voice had gone all soft and the smile had fallen from my face. This wasn’t teasing. He was telling me the nicest things anyone had ever said. Oh, I’d received compliments before, but those had gone in one ear and out the other. Why? Because they weren’t from anyone special. But coming from Ukiah? My heart was listening.
A blush heated my cheeks and I busied myself adjusting the reins just so in my hands. “Doooooo you want to sit by me at breakfast?”
“Yes. But we won’t be eating with everyone else.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as he swung up into his saddle.
He aimed his horse the opposite direction of the Dawson cabins.