by Alyse Zaftig
“I’ve already got a couple of my guys heading that way to scoop him up,” Adam said.
“What? I don’t think—”
“Trust me on this,” Adam said, all mirth gone from his formerly jocular tone. “If the wolf magic is reasserting, he’s more or less going through werewolf puberty right now, and he’s not gonna be fun to be around for a few months, probably.”
“Months?”
She’d perhaps stated the word a bit too loudly. Andreas, who’d been up on the ledge by the window, hopped down then, and started heading toward her.
Shit.
She put her crates back in place and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“The process sucks, especially for a guy his age. What is he, like, thirty?”
“Somewhere around there, I’d guess. We haven’t exactly done very much getting-to-know-you yet.”
They hadn’t had time, but she planned to make some as soon as Andreas was back on two legs again. She liked that he was strange. He was a breath of fresh air.
“We’ll watch out for him until all the tough stuff passes,” Adam said, “and if he wants to go back to Fallon after that, we’re not gonna stop him.”
“I feel like that’s not my decision to make.”
“No, the decision should be his, but he might not be in the right state to be able to make that choice, either. If his family isn’t around, you’ll have to be the one on the hook to look out for his best interests.”
“I don’t feel comfortable being that person.” Yet.
“Just give it some thought.”
She didn’t want to, but she was used to doing things she didn’t really want to. She was a suck-it-up kind of girl. Living in Fallon around so many people who could read feelings but lacked empathy had made her that way. She couldn’t afford to be seen as the weak link. The mocking would have been unendurable. “Adam?” she whispered.
“Yep?”
“What triggers the changes?”
“If I had to guess, will does.”
“I’m sorry? Will? I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“Bear with me, here. Every wolfpack with a gene pool of a certain age is a little different, of course, but I can tell you that Eurasian wolves don’t have to shift for the full moon. We shift at will. When we’re kids and trying to figure things out, temper is enough to trigger a shift. Other kinds of wolves are forced by the full moon to shift, although they can choose to shift at other times, too. Doing so is not as easy for them. I can’t speak in certainties, but I suspect Mr. Toft is one of the former. He’s more like us than like moon shifters.”
“What’s your logic?”
“You say he’s been running wild for a while, so I don’t think the moon has a damn thing to do with what he’s doing. I think once he accidentally shifted those first couple of times, he willed himself into doing the same the next times without realizing what he was triggering. Once he’s cognizant of what changes his thoughts are putting into action, he should be better able to control the shifts.”
“You really think I can shake him out of the wolf now?”
“Ah. I figured you’d cycle back around to that eventually.” He blew a raspberry. “You’re not a wolf, so I’m really just theorizing that what I’m suggesting will work. I do think if you annoy him enough, he’ll do everything he can to shake you off, even if that means slipping free of his fur.”
“And he really doesn’t think with a human brain when he’s in that wolf’s body?”
“Not yet, probably, but he will eventually. Takes time for the memories to merge and for the split in his consciousness to mend. When our wolves shift for the first time, they usually need a couple of months to get completely oriented. That’s part of the reason we still have a pack structure. We have to look out for each other.”
“Andreas has no pack.”
“No,” Adam said quietly. “But he has you. Right now, that has to be enough. You want to keep me on speaker while you poke him? From the way you’ve described him, I don’t think he’s so feral that he’ll attack you, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hurt you. Sometimes, a wolf doesn’t know his strength.”
She drew in a breath, tucked her hair behind her ears, and swallowed.
Andreas nosed against the bottom of the crates, sniffing and shifting them a bit, more forceful with each nudge. He was getting more aggressive—or more curious.
“I think that would be a good idea,” Mary said. “If he really does lose control, there’s no way you’d get to me in time, but—”
“We’ll call the police if we have to.”
“I really don’t want to have to do that.”
“Me neither. Folks like us, we handle our own.”
“Right.” She pulled the phone away from her ear, pressed the speaker button, and then turned up the volume. “Can you hear me, Adam?”
“Yep. Am I on speaker now?”
“You are. I’m about to move some of the crates in front of me. He’s nosing them and trying to get at me.”
“Hostile?”
“No. Just curious, I think.”
“If he’s been looking at you all afternoon, you’re probably as familiar to him as his own fur. Put your hand out to him, slowly, and see what he does. If you see any hint of teeth, pull your arm back.”
“Naturally.”
Mary crawled slowly toward the poking wolf, palm tingling with anticipation and breath coming out in jagged pants. The last wild animal she’d been so close to had been the raccoon that kept returning to her outdoor trashcans. She’d scared it off with a water hose, and the little bastard had hissed at her. But that was a small raccoon—not a being that was more man than he was beast.
She crept her hand into the gap between two crates.
He snapped his head up.
Somehow, she suppressed the compulsion to yank her hand away. Heart pounding hard and sweat beading on her forehead, she kept her hand still as he sniffed her palm and then rubbed the side of his snout against it.
“He’s…rubbing me,” she said to Adam. “Nuzzling my hand.”
“No teeth?”
“No.” No tongue, either, fortunately. She couldn’t imagine the perfectly put-together Andreas Toft lashing his tongue against her hand like a common dog. He was far too civilized.
“So, he’s calm. Give him a little more. Get in his space.”
Mary drew in a breath and pushed one of the crates far enough from the other that she could crawl through, if she wanted, but she didn’t yet. She still wanted to put some semblance of separation between her and Andreas, even if the segregation was merely mental. She sat halfway inside her little jail and halfway out.
He sat in front of her, brown eyes seeking and curious.
“Tell me what’s happening,” Adam said.
“He’s just sitting in front of me. Staring.”
“All right. He’s calm. Time to annoy him a little.”
“How do you suggest I do that?”
“Grab his fur and pull.”
“What?”
“Used to do that to my son all the time when he was a kid. Trust me. He’s past thirty now, and doesn’t remember.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Of course you don’t. No decent person really wants to hurt anyone else, but you’ve got a good reason to be causing the pain. Just consider it medicine.”
“It’s violence.”
“Violence with an end goal. Go on, and don’t just yank, either. Grab and pull hard. If he doesn’t bark at you, you’re not pulling hard enough.”
Gods.
Mary forced another swallow down her tight throat and slowly extended both hands toward Andreas. “I’m trying to help you, okay? I’m trying to get you out of there so you can talk to me.”
The wolf cocked his head in such a humanlike way that Mary wondered if perhaps Andreas had swum back up to the surface and taken control of animating his body.
But then the wolf yawned, wid
e and long, and made a little howl before smacking his chops. There was nothing human about that.
She dug her fingertips into the wiry fur at the front of his chest, and no sooner had he looked down did she tug hard.
He didn’t just bark, but he howled loudly enough to make her eardrums throb and of course she let go, because if she hadn’t, someone would hone in on that noise and they’d find Andreas, and all she was trying to do was help him.
The pain must have been enough because as she scrambled back to her corner and her tote bag, the wolf writhed on the floor, body coiling and trembling, a pitiful gurgle coming from his throat.
“Come on, Mary, give me some idea of what’s going on there,” Adam said.
“Well, he’s convulsing.”
“Touch him.”
“Touch him how?”
“Just touch him. Put your hands on whatever you can reach. Give his brain a sensation to hone in on so he’ll shake off the wolf form faster. It’s harder for them to pull everything back in when they don’t have the training or experience.”
She crawled back to him and, without hesitating, planted her hands against his ribs.
He bucked violently, emitting soft barks and trying to nip at her fingers, but she held on tight. She pressed all her strength into her arms and when that wasn’t enough, she straddled the wolf to pin him down. She clamped her knees against his sides as tightly as she could and murmured, “Come on, Andreas. Come out so you can talk to me. I still have questions to ask you.”
He lashed his head side to side, practically slamming it against the rough concrete floor, and she didn’t want that. She didn’t want him to be bruised and battered when he regained his consciousness. She didn’t want him to hurt anymore, so she pressed her chest against his and grabbed the sides of his face.
Although she knew her magic wasn’t quite right for what he needed, she closed her eyes and tried to push her thoughts into his mind. “Andreas, please. Can you hear me? Stop this.”
Chapter 7
“Stop this.”
Andreas heard those words and understood them, but what he couldn’t understand was what he was supposed to stop doing.
What had he been doing?
“Andreas…” came that faraway voice again. That familiar, feminine voice he would have recognized from across a crowd, and from across a field or through woods.
That was his name—Andreas.
He’d been moving, violently bucking and writhing, but he stopped then and craned his neck around to confirm who spoke to him in such an insistent way.
Oh. Yes.
His goddess.
He opened his mouth to tell her all was well and that she needn’t have worried, but his mouth didn’t work the way it should have. He couldn’t shape his lips around the words or mold his tongue the way he needed to. And his tongue was long and flapping, not thick and firm.
The beast…
How do I…
“Tell me what’s happening,” came a faraway voice, but not in the room. Distant and distorted with static, for some reason.
“He’s stopped moving as much,” his lady said. “He’s just looking. Moving his head as if he’s tracking voices.”
“That’s good,” came the faraway voice. “Keep trying to call him back.”
“Um. Okay.”
She was atop him. Her knees dug against his sides. She pressed her forearms against the hard floor, and placed her face near his head.
Vanilla and banana…
“Andreas,” she whispered. “If you can hear me, know that everything is okay. I won’t hurt you. You just scared me a little. That’s all.”
I frightened her? No. No, never that.
He bucked again, needing to roll over—needing to convince her that he hadn’t meant to frighten her. He couldn’t remember what he’d done, if anything.
Did I physically harm her?
“Be still,” she said, but he’d already rolled over, dislodging her and snapping his jaw, trying to shape the words, but none came out.
“I can’t hold him like this,” she said to the phantom voice.
Where is that sound coming from?
“He needs an alpha, Mary. If he’s stuck like that, one of the boys might be able to force him back, but I don’t know how far they are from you. I hope you can get him to come out sooner than they arrive, or he might get needlessly aggressive.”
Come out?
Andreas pointed his muzzle toward the voice and shouted, but the sound that came out of his throat was a woof, not a human voice saying “Help.”
“What’s he doing, Mary?”
“He’s barking at the phone.”
“No, I don’t think that’s a bark. I think he’s trying to say something and can’t. There’s a little bit of him in there. When he can get back on two legs, he might even remember a little bit of what happened.”
“Any ideas?”
“Pull his fur some more.”
She did, and he howled.
“Don’t like that, huh?” she whispered.
He nipped gently at her wrists, her forearms, and she set her jaw with determination and simply found different patches to tug and torture.
He couldn’t get away from her. He couldn’t roll over again, and the vise grip her thighs had on his body was even tighter now with him laying uncomfortably on his back. Dogs weren’t meant to be on their backs.
She grabbed the scruff under his chin, and then one of his ears, and then some hair right atop his chest. Then she reached behind her and grabbed some hair over his belly, and that seemed to break something inside of him. A howl rent the air, and it was his. His body was set on fire, though he could see no flames.
He writhed beneath her, trying to snuff the fire out against the floor. The blaze was getting under his fur, beneath his skin, into his bones, and it hurt like hell.
“Adam, he’s shifting.”
“Good! Good. Keep on him so he doesn’t slip back.”
“Okay.”
Another yank of fur somewhere on his side, and he couldn’t be certain of where because the pain was already so much.
“S-stop,” he croaked in a voice that most certainly was his. The noise was more growling than talking, though.
Briefly, she did stop, but he watched her recoil with shock or fright or something similar.
Scared or not, she kept pulling fur, and stopped that only to scratch at his tender skin, and to pinch him.
“Don’t you dare shift back on me,” she snapped.
“He’s not stuck, is he?” came the voice.
There must have been a phone somewhere with its speaker on. Sweet Mary was apparently conversing with some sort of sadist.
“I think he’s almost back. His skin is…” She reached down and pressed her hands to his cheeks, cringing. “His skin is rippling, but I think he’s through the worst of the change.”
“That’s everything snapping back where it should go. Imagine an elastic band shrinking. Can you hear me, Andreas?”
Andreas growled through human teeth—a most unsatisfying sound. He regretted making the noise. His throat felt like the fires of hell had raged through him.
“Andreas? You need to answer me, or I’m gonna assume you’re feral,” came the male voice.
Andreas’s teeth were chattering and body shaking hard. He was suddenly so cold.
Naked.
“W-w-who are you?” he asked.
“There you go. Nice to meet ya. I’m Adam Carbone.”
“Th-th-that tells me nothing.”
“Adam,” Mary said to the phone, “he’s shivering violently.”
“Get him wrapped up and next to something warm as soon as you can. It’s hard work transitioning from a body that has fur to one that doesn’t.”
She began to move as if to follow that instruction, but Andreas grabbed her by the waist and kept her atop him. She was warm and soft, and she smelled so fucking fertile.
“Adam, his pupils are huge. Is th
at normal?”
“Hard to say without more context. What’s he doing?”
“Gripping me.”
“In what way?”
Andreas put his head back against the floor, and from that angle could see straight up Mary’s hitched skirt. She’d felt like she wasn’t wearing panties, but she was, and he’d seen them earlier. There just wasn’t much to them. “Off,” he whispered.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. “In a salacious way.”
There came no response from the Adam person.
“Adam?” she queried. “You need to tell me something.”
“Sorry. I was just thinking. Look, I can’t say what’s what with me here and you there. I can only guess at what’s going through his head. Anton and Vic’ll be there in a little while. If you can hang out until they get there, I think that’d be for the best, but I’d certainly understand why you might want to leave.”
“Is he going to shift back into a wolf if I leave?”
“Probably, at some point. Like I said, he can’t help being unpredictable.”
“I’m…a wolf?” Andreas said to Adam.
“Show him the pictures, Mary,” Adam said. “Show him who he is.”
“I will.”
“Who are you?” Andreas asked again.
“I’m Adam Carbone, the alpha of the Norseton wolfpack. Mary needed my help to wake you up. That’s all.”
“Norseton?”
“Yep. Didn’t know about the pack here, huh?” Adam chuckled.
Andreas didn’t know if he’d heard or if he’d just brushed the information aside as useless. He’d had no reason to query about wolves in particular. The word shapeshifter hadn’t ever come to mind. He hadn’t tried to put a name to the kind of monster he was.
“Is everything all right there, Mary?” Adam asked.
“Yes, I think we’re fine for now,” she said, staring down at Andreas, her blue eyes wide and curious. “I’ll call you back if I need your help again.”
“I’ll try to stay off the line. Oh, and I’ll keep you updated about the boys’ ETA.”
“Who are you sending here?” Andreas asked, unhanding Mary’s waist.
That was a mistake, because she scrambled off of him, and the beast inside him didn’t like that. He stirred, and Andreas shouted, “No!” and thumped a fist against his chest.