Cry Of The Wolf (Eye Of The Storm)

by Hardy, Dianna

Werewolves thought they had it bad? Oh no, no, no – they had no idea. Tridents had a five-year turnaround. After that, the genetics that had put them in this world – that had created them into the beasts of the wolf world – went all askew. Their cells short-circuited. They died a messy death, and it was nice and painful to boot.

  And what about his soul? Would he get to keep that?

  The Trident scoffed at the idea of a soul. Even devout Catholics that had been turned from human to Trident had renounced their souls, but not Amil. He had always believed in his. Maybe it came from having a mother who was the High Priestess of a Sekhmet cult, the greatest irony of all, he often mused, being that the goddess, Sekhmet, was depicted as a lioness. A cat.

  Eat that, wolfy, he told his inner-beast. No puppy dogs ruling over this gene pool.

  As a human he’d never doubted the existence of his soul; as a Trident his soul was blacker, but still there inside him, he was sure. He didn’t know if that made him a better being or a worse one. At least the other Tridents didn’t suffer from bouts of consciousness – they did what they did like machines following instructions, never knowing any different, but he supposed that also meant they weren’t entirely responsible for the acts of horror they committed.

  Amil had always struggled, had always known it was wrong, but committed them anyway. And that made him a sinner.

  “Amil…”

  He turned to find Sarah, pale as a sheet, staring at him with concern and … fear. The ever-perplexing, meshed feelings of sorrow and pride washed over him at that.

  He deliberately relaxed his hands on the wheel. “Sarah, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened – I drifted off. A strong coffee will fix that. I must be more tired than I realised.”

  Her voice came out strained and small. “Me and cars don’t … I have a fear of car accidents.”

  “Please forgive me. It won’t happen again.”

  She attempted a laugh, but it sounded more like she was choking. “I know you said you were a demon behind the wheel, but…” She trailed off and blinked rapidly.

  He cursed himself over his slip-up and reached out for her with his left hand. He let it rest gently on her thigh, ignoring the way it stirred him right in his loins. “I really am sorry.”

  She nodded and visibly relaxed.

  He sighed with relief. Ruining the evening before it had even started was exactly like something he would do, and he wanted tonight to go perfectly.

  In the back of his mind, he knew that he’d be silently scenting for werewolves – particularly that she-wolf – since he was going back to Guildford, but he didn’t want tonight to be about that. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he genuinely wanted it to be about Sarah. He wanted to see her smile; to be the one to bring that beautiful rosy colour to her cheeks… Maybe there was hope for him yet.

  There’d better be, because he had three months left to live.

  Three months and his lights went out. For good.

  ~*~

  He didn’t know how long he’d been running for, but he was still within the boundary of Lawrence’s property, and damn it, he just wanted to get rid of the pain. Was that too much to ask? The pain in his chest, in his heart, in his fucking groin…

  You were thinking with your dick! screamed Holly in his head, her words bouncing around his skull.

  He couldn’t stand the thought of Sarah hurting if she found out the truth, which Holly was bringing with her via American Airlines.

  And Lydia had been standing there, listening to him as he let her down…

  And then Lawrence, too…

  Couldn’t he just get rid of the pain without letting anyone down?

  Get rid of the pain? You’re living in a house owned by the king of pain…

  He laughed to himself as he ran. He was fucked. They were all fucked.

  A rustle to his left had him turning to look that way, adrenaline pumping, and out from the thicket leapt Ryan in his wolf’s huge, dark furred body, clearly with the intent of hunting him down.

  Taylor’s blood surged as he raced through the wood, instinct taking over. He was being chased, and if Ryan looked mean as a human, he looked meaner as a wolf.

  And he didn’t want to explain.

  He didn’t want to talk about it.

  It was too confusing – there were too many layers…

  A growl at his heels told him the game was up. Taylor was a fast wolf – faster than Ryan for the most part – but he’d been running blind and hard, too early on. Now, exhaustion crept in and he wasn’t able to put the pace into the chase the way he wanted to.

  Two seconds later and Ryan was on him.

  They both barked and rolled, everything blurring in front of his eyes. He may be fast, but Ryan was at least three times heavier. The Alpha pinned him down with his teeth clamping the back of his neck, but Taylor refused to cease struggling, the well of hurt he’d been carrying, the fuel for the fight.

  Stay down! Ryan directed at him, the telepathic communication an easy process between werewolves, even if they didn’t use it often – it was the one part of being a wolf he’d never struggled with.

  Taylor ignored him and shifted into human form, triggering Ryan’s change also. Maybe that’ll get his teeth off me.

  Like hell it did. Human teeth bit into his neck, drawing blood.

  Taylor yelped and tried to turn.

  “I said, stay down!” growled Ryan.

  “God damn it!”

  A hand slammed him in his back, and he hissed as the ground winded him. Ryan hadn’t let up with his teeth either.

  His frustration peaked, but there was nothing he could do about it. Slowly, his struggles faded until all that was left was the hurt inside him … monumental… swallowing him whole.

  Choking sounds left him, and that’s when he realised they were wrenching sobs, nine moons old; nine moons frozen in place by shock and grief.

  He couldn’t stop.

  He couldn’t feel Ryan holding him down any more, but he couldn’t turn to look either because emotion racked his body, tears flowing… He wondered if he’d be made fun of, or thrown out of the pack for being such a wuss.

  He cried until he was spent; until the earth beneath him was soggy with his tears and he felt all dried up.

  The light from the afternoon sun had moved from his face to the fingertips on his outstretched arms.

  Already? Had he been lying there that long?

  The pain inside him felt raw, but strangely less, like it had lost its focus and dispersed with the flow of his tears.

  A sweet smell on the air made his stomach clench with hunger, as if he were a newborn; he heard the crackling of fire… What—

  Marshmallows.

  He turned to look over his shoulder.

  Ryan sat naked by a just-built fire toasting marshmallows.

  Maybe he’d cried himself into a stupor and this was some freaky-arsed dream. “Marshmallows?” Taylor croaked out.

  “Yeah,” replied Ryan, still gazing straight ahead as he cooked the candy. “You wandered into a part of the woods I like the most. I’m a bit territorial about it. Anyway, I keep a stash of provisions in the hollow of that trunk over there,” he waved towards an old oak, “and marshmallows are my favourite.” He finally turned around, a wide smile on his face as he wafted one gooey mallow around on a stick. “You want?”

  His stomach answered for him.

  Taylor hauled himself up and cautiously made his way towards the fire, eyes fixed on the older wolf, and finally sat opposite him on the ground.

  “Relax,” said Ryan.

  “You bit me.”

  “You fought me.”

  “You chased me.”

  “You ran.” He handed Taylor a second stick with a pink marshmallow on it.

  He took it.

  They regarded each other in silence, the popping of the fire the only thing breaking it.

  When the sugary treat was ready and suitably sticky, Taylor shoved it in his mouth, i
gnoring the sudden bite of the heat on first contact. “Mmmmm…” Oh, hell, this was better than sex … almost…

  “That good, huh?”

  “I haven’t had one of these since…” His voice trailed off as a bout of nostalgia hit him square in the gut.

  “Since you were a boy. A human boy,” Ryan finished for him.

  Taylor stared at him and nodded.

  Ryan threw him a bag of the soft pink and white sweets. “Help yourself. They’re a good ‘moving on’ snack. Women eat ice cream, men toast marshmallows.”

  Taylor snorted out a laugh. “Never thought of it that way before.”

  “That’s because you never had your heart ripped out your chest ‘til just nine months ago.”

  He swallowed the lump in his throat with his second marshmallow. Whaddaya know, they did help the grief go down easier. “I thought I was moving on … this morning it was all so clear…”

  This time, it was Ryan who snorted. “You think that’s how it works? Your life as you know it ends, and you just get over it one day like waking up from a dream? Well, dream on. Getting over something or someone that meant the world to you never happens.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  He suddenly felt queasy. “Then how—”

  “You let go. You don’t ‘get over’ – you ‘let go’.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Getting over uses force. Letting go uses acceptance. You haven’t accepted it, Taylor. You’ve forced yourself to go with it for the sake of getting through every day, but you haven’t accepted it. You’ve been in denial for nine months. Did you know that you still carry Sarah’s scent? It’s faint – very faint – but it’s still there. It should be Lydia’s scent you’re carrying, but you’re still hanging on to the past.”

  Another marshmallow went in as he pondered Ryan’s words, overshadowing feelings of bitterness with its sweetness. “How do I let go? How do I accept it? Just sit back and say, ‘okay’? Be okay with it? Let it win?”

  “Let what win?”

  “I dunno. God? Life? Evil?”

  “Oi!” Ryan barked out, angry. “Watch it. Do I look evil to you?”

  “You don’t look like a saint.”

  “Hmmm … point taken. But if we’re evil, then what the fuck are The Trident?”

  “Fine. Fate then. Yeah, fate. Fate fucked me over and I’m supposed to shake its hand and congratulate it on the win?”

  “Fate fucks us all over and we have no choice on that, but then the wheel turns and it throws us a line. Whether we take it or not, that is our choice.”

  Taylor shifted uncomfortably. “You mean Lydia? Is she the line?”

  “You were the one who said she was here for a reason. And I’ve seen you around her these past three weeks. You’re smiling more, loosening up, even shifting without any provocation – just because you want to. So what happened just now?”

  He shook his head. “I messed up. I wanted to be there for her—”

  “You have been.” His voice went quiet. “She doesn’t talk to me the way she talks to you.”

  Taylor looked up. Was he upset about that? “An old friend of Sarah’s called – one we hadn’t been in touch with for a while. She demanded to know why Sarah’s ‘pretending’ I don’t exist, and now she’s booked herself on the next plane from New York. And Lydia heard – saw – how upset I was for Sarah … fuck…” He ate another marshmallow. “How can I be with Lydia when I hurt so much over Sarah? It’s not fair. It’s not fair on her … and,” he hesitated, sneaking a glance at Ryan.

  “And?”

  His neck heated with embarrassment. “Lawrence got there first.”

  Ryan’s face was a mask of stillness for exactly three seconds, and then he tipped his head back and howled with laughter.

  The embarrassment spread to his cheeks.

  “There he is!” cried out Ryan amid guffaws and hoots. “There’s your wolf!”

  “It’s not funny!”

  “Oh, fuck, it is.” He wiped the corners of his eyes. “Taylor, the treasured best friend, the neutral advisor – the human – finally gets territorial. Finally.”

  Taylor glowered at Ryan.

  “I feel like popping champagne.”

  He threw down his marshmallow stick, his anger mounting, and rose to his feet. “It’s not about that.”

  “Like hell it isn’t.”

  “It isn’t just about that; it’s everything! Everything’s so messed up and confusing. Every time I’m near her I get as erect as the fucking Eiffel Tower – have you forgotten I was there for her before the mating took place? Before she even found you? I was there, I was with her, and smelling you on her … and now Lawrence…” He smacked his forehead against a tree in defeat. “It pisses me off and … god damn it, it turns me on. It actually turns me on. It makes it harder not to go to her, and I’ve been waiting – or trying to – until I can let Sarah go … and I thought this morning I had…” He sighed, then heard Ryan come up behind him.

  Turning around, he was surprised to find him in animal form again.

  The wolf reached up towards Taylor’s hand and gave it a couple of licks. It was a ‘thank you’, from wolf to man.

  Aw, shit. He was gonna cry again.

  Ryan changed back into his human body. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. She might be dead if it weren’t for you, and for it to be you out of all of us, with all your hang-ups, that gave yourself to her in that way… No. I haven’t forgotten. But, Taylor,” he grasped the back of his neck, all healed up from their scrap, only seriousness in his eyes now … and for one very rare moment, Taylor caught a glimpse of the real reason he was the successful Alpha he was; why everyone respected his experience and took his lead, “you have got to accept it. When fate fucks you over, you submit, because you can’t see the bigger picture until you’ve surrendered yourself to it.”

  “I can’t force myself to—”

  “To submit isn’t to be forced. It’s to yield to a force greater than your own, in order to become part of the whole.”

  Like submitting to the Alpha to become part of the pack, added the wolf inside him.

  A strange calm fell over him. Shit … he was getting it. It was one of those instants where your mind sort of expanded, even if those instants never seemed to last that long.

  He nodded.

  Ryan pulled away from him and gave himself a shake. “Yuuugh,” he mumbled. “I don’t do this Gandhi shit often, it ruins my reputation and it’s fucking exhausting.” He packed up the marshmallows and put them back in the tree trunk they’d come from, then put out the fire. “You wanna walk back or run?”

  Taylor offered him a small smile. “Where did you learn to do that Gandhi shit?”

  Ryan grunted. “The pack I originally hail from were big on stuff like that. Maybe one day I’ll tell you all about it while you feed me cookies and milk or something.”

  “You should do it more often.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you wanna hug too? Now, walk or run… Make a damn choice.”

  His smile widened. “I want to run.”

  Chapter Nine

  Lydia tried to ignore the feelings of nervousness that fluttered in her stomach.

  After Taylor’s little episode over the fact that she had been with Lawrence, she’d swallowed back her hurt and picked up the trail of clothes he’d left on the floor after he’d shifted.

  Lawrence had squeezed her hand once, his expression as unreadable as ever, and then had left her to it.

  She had gone up to her room, showered, dried herself and changed into her maître d’ uniform without feeling any better.

  Now, she picked up Taylor’s clothes from where she’d left them on her chair, folded and laid them on her bed, not wanting to enter his own room without his permission. On top of the pile, she placed the five material bracelets he occasionally wore, and her heart hurt a little more. She’d asked him about them a couple of weeks back, and he’d told her they
were something that Sarah and he had shared: they’d given each other a friendship bracelet for each year they’d been together. They never took them off … at least he hadn’t as a human. Nowadays, however, he didn’t wear them often because he was too afraid of losing them if he shifted. Like he did earlier, she supposed.

  She stuffed his socks into his shoes and slid them neatly under her bed.

  There, that was better.

  Silence engulfed her.

  On impulse she grabbed his folded shirt, scrunched it up to her nose and breathed it in. Her heart ached. Did he not know? Did he not know it was his scent, him, that had saved her life … his scent on her blouse?

  No, because you never told him…

  Damn it.

  Selfish idiot. There you go, shutting people out again.

  She whipped off the top she’d just put on and slipped his shirt on instead without bothering to button it up, the way it smelled – all green and musky – taking her back to that night she’d been so confused, and in so much pain… “Your scent was the only thing that kept me sane,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She all but screamed as she turned to face the door.

  Taylor stood there, naked, hands and feet muddied, smudges of dirt all over his body, brown hair tousled, green eyes shining in apology.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “I was quiet.”

  “I didn’t smell you.”

  “Because you’re wearing my shirt.” Desire darkened his eyes at those words, but only for a second, and then he was back to apologetic.

  “Taylor,” she began, but stopped right there, because she didn’t actually know how to begin. It shouldn’t be hard, because she and Taylor had fallen into an easy friendship since their mating – the kind of friendship she’d never had with anyone else – but this … this was different.

  He shut her bedroom door then walked towards her, the action reminding her of the moment she’d woken up in this house. He’d been the first person she’d seen – he’d always been there. How can he not know…

  The smell of the woods came off him in waves, as well as Ryan’s aroma. The heady combination of Taylor, Ryan and nature, did unexpected things to her – hot, sinful things.