Howlin'

by Allyson James

  “What were you and Alain—?” She broke off, her hands stealing to cup her breasts. “I still can’t control this. Maybe you should go.”

  His smile for some reason calmed some of the wildness inside her. “Later, sweetheart, I’ll give you every detail. Right now you need to take me out in that SUV of yours so I can show you something.”

  Did she ask for an explanation or even one good reason why she should go with him? No, she just grabbed her keys, signed herself out and led him to the truck.

  * * * * *

  Alain locked up the house, wondering why Jackson hadn’t wanted him to go with him to see Patrice. It was his father dead, poisoned by someone who knew all about werewolves. Jackson had seen something out in the canyons last night—why the reluctance to tell Alain what he’d found?

  The man’s seduction had effectively stopped Alain in his proposed investigation. Why? So Alain wouldn’t be upset, or for some more sinister reason? He felt nothing sinister from the coyote-man but that didn’t mean Jackson couldn’t mask his true nature. He was a demigod after all.

  Alain didn’t have the police connections Patrice did, but he had one advantage. His father had been liked and respected in town, and the locals accepted Alain as one of them. He would have an in on the gossip and piece together what they knew.

  After he showered and dressed, he decided to continue his plans, despite Jackson’s discouragement. He went back to see Howard Weiss, his father’s friend.

  Howard was a well-muscled man in his sixties with gray-white hair. On a shelf in the living room was a photo Alain had seen here last time, of Alain’s father and Howard in hiking gear.

  “I never saw it coming,” he said glumly as he handed Alain a bottle of beer. “There wasn’t anything wrong with Tom’s heart. We’d just come back from a three-day hike through some slot canyons up in Utah. We climbed all over the place and there wasn’t a thing wrong with him.”

  “Was there anything different about his last months or this last year?” Alain asked. “Someone new hanging around him?”

  Howard looked puzzled, then he laughed. “There was Gina. He didn’t tell you about her? Maybe he was embarrassed, at his age falling in love with a woman twenty years younger than he was. I liked her, though.”

  Alain was surprised, but not unduly shocked. Alain’s mother had died when Alain had been three and he’d seen his father date before. None of the women ever lasted, but his father had never been secretive about it.

  “Gina?” he prompted.

  “Gina Wood. Gorgeous lady, long black hair, liked to hike. I have a picture of her around somewhere.” Howard put his beer aside and got up to rummage in a drawer. He handed Alain a photo of Thomas Dupree with his arm around a dark-haired woman in her forties. She was pretty in an I-live-to-exercise way.

  “Too bad about what happened,” Howard said, sitting back down. He shook his head. “I told him she was too pretty for him.”

  “What did happen? I don’t know anything about this.”

  “Like I said, Tom was embarrassed. She dumped him. She went back to Chicago and never called, never wrote, nothing. He talked about going up there and finding her, but he never made definite plans. He was trying to suck it up, but I know it hurt.”

  “She’s from Chicago? Do you have a phone number for her?”

  “No, but your dad probably did somewhere. Unless he trashed everything that reminded him of her.”

  Alain asked a few more questions and gradually got the whole story. Gina Wood had come down to Sedona from Chicago for an extended holiday. She was a copywriter who liked to take sporty vacations—backpacking, rock-climbing, sailing. She met Thomas Dupree, they hit it off and she moved in with him.

  Howard thought they had a good thing going and was happy for his friend, then all of a sudden, Gina up and left. One day, while Thomas was out, Gina packed a bag and took off, leaving a lot of her things behind. Thomas was brokenhearted. A couple of weeks later, Thomas died. Life sucked sometimes.

  Alain left Howard’s house both angry and hopeful. He went back home and scoured his father’s house for any mention of Gina Wood.

  * * * * *

  The SUV rattled over washerboard roads, bouncing so much that Patrice and Jackson couldn’t talk. He’d shout a direction and she’d do her best to follow it, but that was it.

  Jackson directed her to drive off the road onto a small, dry track that ended at a wash. She stopped the SUV, set the brake and shut off the engine.

  She sat back to catch her breath. “This is as far as this thing can go.”

  “Not much farther. We can walk.”

  Patrice slid out of the driver’s seat, depositing the keys in her pocket. Jackson started off at a jog, his lithe form moving down the dry wash at a brisk pace. Patrice was in good enough shape to keep up with him but she was panting and wheezing by the time he stopped.

  Jackson wasn’t even out of breath. “This is what I saw.”

  Patrice put her hands on her hips and surveyed the area. Juniper trees overhung the wash from a steep hill, but among them was a man-built blind—a hunter’s blind. People did hunt deer in the wild, but this area was strictly regulated, a wildlife preserve with no hunting allowed.

  “Someone was watching last night, waiting for us to appear,” Jackson said.

  Patrice climbed down behind the blind. Nothing had been left, not an empty beer can or a cigarette stub or a torn piece of clothing that could help her identify the hunter. At least Patrice the woman couldn’t, but Patrice the wolf might be able to.

  When she came back up, she found Jackson naked on the bank, his clothes in a neat pile. She stared, open-mouthed, at the perfection of his body. The man was gorgeous, almost as good as Alain. She remembered tasting his cock, her tongue and Alain’s swirling around each other and around Jackson, and she blushed.

  He grinned at her. “Come on, strip down and join me.”

  “I can change during the day?”

  “You can change any time. You control the wolf, Patrice.”

  Patrice wasn’t sure about that. She only knew that every time the moon showed up these days, she got itchy and bitchy and incredibly horny.

  The only relief was to change to the wolf, run as hard as she could and have sex with Alain. No slow, sweet lovemaking, but hard, heavy, panting sex with not one but two men. Two weeks ago it never would have occurred to her to do the things she’d done the past few nights, but now it seemed natural and right.

  At least they were way back in the wilderness with no camping and no hiking trails, no one to see her. She kicked off her shoes and stripped off her uniform, folding everything and laying it on top of Jackson’s clothes.

  “I can’t leave my gun and my ID,” she argued, ignoring Jackson’s appreciative gaze on her body. “First rule. I lose my gun, I lose my job.”

  Jackson shrugged, muscles rippling. “I’ll strap it to your wolf body for you.”

  Patrice studied him, liking his tight body and long black hair. Black hair curled across his chest and arrowed in a line that pointed downward to his long, thick cock. A beautiful man, finely crafted.

  “What tribe are you from?” she asked him. “I’ve been trying to decide if you’re Navajo or Yavapai or even Apache, maybe from around Payson.”

  “I’m from all tribes, sweetheart,” Jackson answered. “I protect them all. Even you whities, though you don’t always see me or believe.”

  “Oh, I believe in you,” Patrice said wholeheartedly. She took a breath, readying herself for the crazy feeling of the change. “I haven’t had much practice at this. I don’t know if I can control it yet.”

  “Find the wolf inside you. Like Alain said, you become it, but you control it. It is part of you, but only a part.”

  Easy for them to say. Alain was already comfortable with his wolf self and Jackson was a demigod. They didn’t feel the tingling, wild urges that threatened to rip her apart if she gave in to them—and to rip her apart if she didn’t. Of course, men
didn’t understand PMS either.

  She closed her eyes, liking the hot-cold combination of sun and wind on her skin, and looked for the wolf.

  Chapter Six

  Alain found Gina Wood’s suitcase half full of clothes in a corner of his father’s garage. It had been placed neatly in a storage cabinet, as though his father hadn’t wanted to see Gina’s things but couldn’t bring himself to throw them away.

  Alain found a postcard of Sedona stuffed into a pocket of the bag, already addressed but never stamped and mailed. He leaned against the car and stared at the photo of Coffee Pot rock, red and stark against a blue sky.

  Why would the woman write a postcard to someone in Chicago if she planned to leave right away? And why leave the postcard behind, plus souvenir shirts of different sizes, obviously meant as gifts?

  To leave for Chicago, Gina would need a car, either to make the long three-day drive or to go down the hill to Phoenix to catch a plane. She hadn’t stolen or borrowed Thomas’ car, because it was here under Alain’s butt.

  She’d have to rent, which meant getting a lift into Sedona, or maybe all the way to Phoenix, and people would remember that. They’d remember if they saw her out on the county road hitching too. But according to Howard, no one had seen her leave.

  Alain looked again at the photo Howard had given him of the two men side by side in the slot canyon. Who had taken the photo—Gina? Slot canyons were remote and hard to reach—not a lot of tourists would be happening by to snap a picture. Conclusion, Gina had probably gone with them.

  Howard and Thomas had been best friends, but what could drive friends apart? A pretty woman who liked to hike and climb as much as they did? Perhaps instead of sharing her, like Jackson and Alain with Patrice, the two men had become rivals.

  Come to think of it, Alain’s mind whispered, Alain and Jackson weren’t sharing Patrice. Patrice and Jackson were sharing Alain.

  He shook off the distraction, grabbed the suitcase and carried everything inside. It didn’t take long on the Internet to find a phone number that matched the name and address on the postcard, and then Alain had a very interesting conversation with Gina Wood’s best friend in Chicago, a woman named Sandra.

  No, Gina hadn’t returned home. She’d kept in touch, promising to bring gifts from out there in the Wild West for Sandra’s kids. Sandra told him Gina had met a man and thought it might be the real thing. Better than the first man Gina had met out there, a real jerk.

  Alain perked up. First man? Did Gina tell her his name?

  No, Sandra said. She hadn’t mentioned it.

  Alain hung up the phone, his body burning with frustration. The wolf inside him wanted to tear up the town until he found out what happened to this Gina, and what she had to do with his father’s death. The cooler side of him told him to call Patrice and tell her what he’d discovered.

  But Patrice had gone out, the dispatcher informed him, and she wasn’t answering her radio. Alain hung up, his fingers changing to claws in front of his eyes.

  He ripped off his clothes as the black wolf took over, then he sprang from the back porch and sprinted down the path, heading west across the creek.

  * * * * *

  “I’ve smelled it before,” Patrice said, sitting on her wolf’s haunches in the middle of the hunter’s blind. “But I can’t remember where.”

  She and Jackson had followed the scent for a mile or so before losing it at a wash running thick with runoff. They’d returned to the blind after that to see what else they might turn up.

  “As a wolf?” Jackson, the coyote, asked her.

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. The last couple days have been a blur.”

  “They’ve been eventful for you.”

  That was an understatement. “Do I love Alain?” she asked, half to herself. “Or is it just the change? I’ve never met anyone like him.” She thought of his silver eyes, the way he gentled himself for her, his deep, wonderful voice. If she wasn’t already in love with him, she could fall in love.

  “You are meant to be with him,” Jackson said. “You’ll love him.”

  “You’re sure, are you?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’m Coyote. If I have to have sex with the pair of you until you’re bonded, I will.”

  “What a sacrifice for you.”

  “It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. I’ll fix the fence though, that’s no trouble.”

  “The fence?” Patrice stared at him, pieces falling into place. “You knocked down Alain’s fence? Why?”

  “So you’d see it and drive out to tell him about it. I couldn’t wait forever for you to run into each other again.”

  “You’ve been trying to get us together?”

  Jackson shifted back into his human form and Patrice, after a moment’s concentration, did too. It was getting easier, though she still had to brace herself.

  Jackson went on, “Like I said, you belong together. But you’re both independent and busy. I’ve had to work fast.”

  “You were with Alain this afternoon,” Patrice said. “When you came into my office, I smelled it on you, both of you together.” Her quim tightened. “You never told me what you were doing.”

  “I will now.”

  Jackson told stories very well. He described every touch and every taste shared between himself and Alain better than the best erotic novel. By the time he finished, ending with Alain and him kissing on the bed, Patrice was quivering with need, her hands cupping her breasts, her quim hot.

  Jackson came to her. He gently moved her hands and rubbed her swollen areoles for her, fingers rolling the points until they tingled. She moved against him, liking his strength and the sexy smell of him and his dark, dark eyes.

  She gasped when he got to his knees and put his mouth on her quim, his tongue flicking over her clit. The friction was wonderful. She wanted Alain but she wanted this too, her fingers in Jackson’s black hair, his mouth doing incredible things between her legs.

  She thrust her aching clit against him as he suckled and nibbled and licked, her body tense for every second of enjoyment. Just when she thought he’d let her release, he backed off, a wicked twinkle in his eyes. Then he put his mouth to her again until she screamed to the empty sky.

  Finally he stood up and grinned at her, wiping his mouth with his fingers.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, breathless.

  “You looked like you needed to relax. Feel better?”

  She did. The hormones that raged through her from the call of the wolf had been sated somewhat. She realized he’d wound her up and brought her back down in order to help her.

  “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “My pleasure,” he rumbled. “Later, we’ll get with Alain and put it all together.”

  Patrice had a sudden vision of herself spread on Alain’s bed, Jackson suckling her as he had just now and Alain behind him, filling Jackson as Jackson had described. She let out a final, frustrated moan and pressed her hand between her legs.

  Jackson kissed her, his lips gentle, but he looked pleased with himself.

  * * * * *

  Alain hunted for a while, following the canyons, sheer red cliffs covered with gnarled piñons rising to either side of him. A few mountain goats scrambled to get out of his way, but he wasn’t hunting them today.

  After a time he stopped running, trotted to a halt, then sank panting to his haunches. Jackson was probably right—he needed logic to solve this puzzle, not anger. He needed Patrice. In more ways than one.

  Fucking her had been good, opening emotions that he’d never opened before. He’d thought at first it was because she was his mate—naturally he’d feel protective and also physically needy for her.

  He was starting to think it was a little more than that.

  Plus he’d had sex with a man. Well, Jackson wasn’t just a man. He was a god, which maybe made things different.

  Whatever it was had been good, and not something he wanted to keep secret from Pa
trice. He wanted her to know about it, he wanted her to join in. Damn, testosterone hadn’t raged through his body like this since he’d been eighteen.

  He made his way back home, crossed the creek in deep shadows and shifted back once inside. He had to take a cold shower and drink about a gallon of water before he called Patrice.

  * * * * *

  Jackson and Patrice dressed, then Patrice drove back into town, neither of them speaking much. Jackson whistled and looked out of the window at the scenery while Patrice concentrated on keeping the SUV on the narrow roads.

  When they reached the station forty-five minutes later, Susan Gonzalez looked up at her. “Someone was trying to reach you—said it was important. I radioed, but you were out of range.”

  “I was investigating an illegal hunter’s blind,” Patrice explained quickly. “You need to send someone out to the big wash west of Vultee Arch Road to clear it up. Who was it?”

  “That Alain Dupree who moved out to his father’s place. He didn’t leave a message.”

  Patrice dove into her office to call Alain back.

  “Is Jackson with you?” he asked before he even said hello.

  “Yes. Why?”

  Alain’s voice went low and gruff. “I need you.”

  “I’m done at four,” she answered breathlessly.

  “I found out a few things.” He paused. “Plus I’m about to explode.”

  “Me too.” Patrice sank into her office chair, resisting the urge to rub herself where Jackson had licked her. “I can’t wait to see you.”

  “Say, four-thirty?”

  “I’ll rush right over.” She meant it.

  “Bring Jackson.”

  “Oh, you betcha.” She hesitated a moment then said, “He told me. Everything.”

  She could hear his quick breathing, her werewolf senses sharper now. She could even hear the rapid thud-thud of his pulse against the phone. “I’m glad,” he said.

  She wanted to tell him how much the story had turned her on, but she couldn’t risk Susan overhearing. “So am I.”

  “Four-thirty, then.”

  “I’ll be there.”