by V. A. Dold
Night after night, the female wolf quietly trotted into his dream and lay next to his wolf. They never romped or played. They just lay as close as they could, touched each other as much as possible. The nightly specter calmed his wolf in ways Simon had never been able to. Without her visits, he would have never survived his last year in the service.
He lovingly drew a life like color image of his wolf angel. On his next weekend pass, he went to the only tattoo artist available. He prayed the man had some talent as he showed him his rendering. One of his massage friends agreed to be his interpreter. “Can he do it?” Simon asked.
She spoke with the man for a minute then answered, “He can do it but it will take several extensive visits to draw the wolf and add all the layers of color. He has a book of past artwork he can show you if you want to judge his work.”
That was perfect as far as Simon was concerned. He could memorialize his savior wolf on his back and get extensive skin-to-skin contact at the same time. Win-win in his book.
He was riding with his squad for their weekend in town. He had used every pass he received over the past few months to complete the tattoo. The art was impressive and covered the majority of his back. Some of his friends thought it was rad, others thought he’d gone a little loco. But Simon knew the truth of it and that was all that mattered. The wolf and the time required getting the tattoo saved his life.
Simon sat on the edge of his bunk. He was hiding in the barracks. He had only days until his final discharge after four long years. The Major had tried every trick in the book to get him to reenlist. He didn’t have a clue there was no way that would ever be possible. He breathed heavily with his eyes closed. It took every ounce of effort and deep concentration to fight the shift his wolf was trying to force. He kept his hands hidden in the folds of the blanket he sat on so the other soldiers couldn’t see his hands shift from human to wolf and back again. Finally Simon wrestled his wolf under control.
Simon and his unit were assigned to scout an unfamiliar sector. He stretched his senses as far as they would go. Something had his radar on high alert but he couldn’t pin point the problem. It was like a strobe flashing but in the guise of emotional energy. One second it felt aggressive then BAM! It was joyful. He halted his unit and signaled Mark over.
“Sir, I sense something but it’s extremely erratic. I can’t pin point if it is a threat or not. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“We’ll have to investigate the old fashioned way then.” Mark signaled the unit into recon formation and put them through the drill they knew so well.
Moment’s later gunfire erupted and chaos reigned.
An enemy cell high on the local street drug, wildly fired upon the unit. Most of the men were able to find cover, Mark wasn’t so lucky.
The battle ended as abruptly as it began and Simon sensed the enemy moving away. A medic field dressed Mark’s leg as they swiftly prepared to move out. They needed to get him to the hospital ASAP.
Simon blamed himself for his best friend’s injury. He should have known the threat was there. Why didn’t my gift work this one last time? Try as he might, the answers didn’t come.
He visited Mark to check on his progress. It didn’t matter how many times Mark told him it wasn’t his fault, that he’d given the order so he was to blame, Simon didn’t hear it.
The struggle with his wolf worsened with each passing minute until Simon didn’t know if he could hold him back any longer. He had twenty-four hours to maintain human form and then he would be in the clear. It proved to be the longest, roughest, twenty-four hours of his existence.
He gritted his teeth in concentration. I can do this, just a few more steps. Slowly he exited the transport plane to the tarmac. He shook with the effort. He held his human form, but barely, until he was safely in the back seat of his parents’ car. Headed home to the plantation, he lay silently in wolf form.
Emma Le Beau took her mate’s hand as tears slowly tracked down her face. Her baby was suffering,and she couldn’t help him. At least not until she understood it. If anyone could help Simon it would be her. She needed to speak with the spirits and devise a plan to make him whole. She wanted her Simon back, no one said no to Emma when she was determined..
Chapter 3
Simon’s Recovery
Simon emerged from the forest as his wolf. Closing his eyes, he raised his head to the warm sun and cooling breeze. It didn’t help, the ache in his chest remained. Opening his eyes, his gaze zeroed in on his personal home. If he concentrated really hard, he could imagine his mate walking along the porch, waiting for him to return. A familiar yearning filled him, the desire for his one true mate. When would he find her? Was she living close by or in another country? He’d found a modicum of peace in shifting and going for long runs. But it didn’t fill his need.
He was restless; the feeling had hounded him for a while. There was no understanding it; it just was. Shifting to human, he walked across the expanse of lawn nodding to himself. He was going to do it, he would enlist for a four-year stint today. Perhaps the physical aspects of Marine life and the travel would bring him some peace. If the Goddess was in an especially good mood, he might even meet his mate. He sure wouldn’t find her sitting at home.
Isaac shook the wolf sleeping on the sofa. “Come on, Simon, you really need to try to be human more. You are shedding like a husky in the summertime.” Isaac sounded exhausted.
With a start, Simon woke from the dream or should he call it a nightmare? That fateful decision led to his present condition: every time he attempted to shift to human, it felt like being a hundred feet below the surface of the ocean, he could see a sliver of light but not reach it.
Someone stroked his fur in slow rhythmic glides. It felt like heaven and helped slightly but wasn’t enough. At this rate, it would take two years before he could shift back.
As they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. If he’d known joining the Marines would be tantamount to a jail cell for a shifter, he would have never enlisted.
I now understand why we don’t have jails as a system to reform shifters. You can’t lock a shifter away from others and expect a positive outcome. Put a shifter into a cell and he’ll waste away and become lost in his wolf form. Shifter law had two solutions for crimes depending on their severity. For breaking a lesser law: always put your mate before yourself, respect another shifters’ mate, and respect all nonhumans, there was the sentence of blood rights. A brutal and barbaric ritual where the criminal was tied to a stake and the offended party beat him to within an inch of his life.
For the unforgiveable crimes of exposing shifters to the world or harming another shifter for any reason other than self-defense, the sentence was death.
The only exception to this simplistic system applied to the royal family, a crime against the royals was death, period.
After an hour of attempting to shift, he harrumphed in disappointment. A few weeks had passed and he’d hoped there would be more improvement. He desperately wanted to meet Cade’s mate at the barbeque today, but he couldn’t make it to the surface. His repeated attempts left him exhausted and he now lay on the couch napping.
Drifting in and out of dreams, he jolted awake as pain, like an icepick in his temple, shot through his skull. His moans of agony came out as whines and whimpers.
In addition to being stuck in wolf form he had almost no control over his empathy. If he had hands he would be cradling his head. This was bad! There were too many people here for the barbeque and he was in emotion overload. No longer able to block or filter emotions as they struck him, he was battered unmercifully, and damn it was painful. He could handle a few people at a time but this exceeded his limits. This was a migraine times a thousand.
Was that a female’s voice coming from the kitchen? he wondered through his haze of torment. Pressing his eyes shut tightly, he heard soft footfalls cross the room and smelled the sweet scent of woman.
“Hello, Simon, I’m Anna James, Cade’s mate. May
I touch you?”
He couldn’t speak in this form even if his head wasn’t cleaved in half. Instead, he made a small harrumph sound and opened his eyes. It took a second to focus, she had squatted next to the couch about ten inches from his face and waited for his permission. With only paws available, he couldn’t shake her hand. Doing the next best thing, he reached forward, stretched his neck toward her, and licked her cheek. His wolfy hello made her giggle. He loved the sound of a woman’s laughter. She tentatively began to pet him, and scooted a little closer.
Simon rumbled, this woman’s caress brought a sense of peace and health he’d never experienced in all his one hundred and seventy years. It felt like his energy level had been jump-started. The surge had his human half rising closer to the surface. It was as if his human soul was stretching and reaching toward her touch.
She stroked him and scratched behind his ears. Oh my God, that is amazing! Her hands felt so good. His wolf continued the soft rumble of satisfaction in his chest. As close to a purr as a wolf could get. He adjusted his position on the couch, he needed her to touch every inch of him. Please, Anna, don’t stop what you’re doing.
He heard his father calling for everyone to be seated and she whispered, “I’ll come back after dinner if you would like.” With one last scratch her fingers were gone.
His human half shot to the surface like a bullet from a gun, her touch was nothing short of a miracle. Clutching the doorframe for support, he rounded the corner into the dining room. A hush fell over the family as all heads turned toward him. Anna had her back to him and slowly turned to look him in the eye for the first time. The short few steps from the doorframe to her chair were like struggling through quick sand.
He extended his trembling hand to her, after so many days unable to speak, “Welcome, Anna,” was all he could croak out. His throat felt dry and raw from disuse. She gave him her hand and remained very still as he raised it to gently brush his lips across her knuckles. He turned to Cade as he released her hand. “You have a lovely mate, brother. She’s a treasure.” Already, the exhaustion was returning. He gritted his teeth, determined to remain human until he reached the couch. His backside hadn’t even warmed the cushions before he lost control to his wolf again.
Twenty-five minutes later, he heard her soft footfalls and scented her as she returned. She lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him. He sniffed for Cade’s scent, concerned that his brother would resent this interaction with his new mate. He didn’t smell or sense anxiety or jealousy from his brother, rather the fresh scent of pride.
Her healing magic was profound, even his wolf sat silently watching in awe as this human woman achieved what no one else had. Somehow, just her caress was healing him. He didn’t understand it and he sure as hell wasn’t going to question it. If her touch helped him rejoin the human world, he would accept every stroke with relish and find a way to thank her later.
It felt so good to lay with his eyes closed and absorb whatever she was doing. He felt her instinctively reposition her hands strategically on his head and chest. From her shaky, hesitant fingers, he would bet money she was unaware of the way she intuitively reached for the perfect position. A shifter’s wolf resided mainly in his thoughts and heart, a virtual second soul in the body. She had unerringly located his wolf within without realizing it.
He started his low contented rumble again and relaxed under her hands. Wherever she touched, he felt a mild heat, it seemed to radiate from her palms. The sensation was warm but not overly hot. It felt REALLY good. She remained still for such a long time he started to doze off.
Like a heating pad that had shut off, slowly the warmth stopped radiating from her hands and the areas she touched cooled. He waited for her to pull her hands away before he rolled off the couch and lowered himself to the floor next to her. Expressing his gratitude, he laid his head in her lap for a moment, gave her hand a little lick, then rose and padded down the hall and out of sight. His body and soul urged him to sleep and absorb the healing it had taken in. He could almost feel it soaking into every cell and molecule.
He woke the next morning still in wolf form but feeling amazing. His human soul was closer to the surface, that sliver of light was a little larger and brighter. If he could skip as a wolf, he would, maybe do a cartwheel too. I sure hope she comes back today. Damn, shifters really need opposable thumbs in wolf form. He cocked his head, studying the doorknob. With no other choice, he waited and prayed for her return. This of course left him time to review what had happened the night before. He gasped when he realized that once she stroked him, the pain in his head disappeared. He hadn’t noticed the spike being removed from his brain. He’d been too busy enjoying her touch.
Two hours passed, he was losing patience and preparing to shoot through the door the next time it opened so he could track her down. That’s when he heard them approaching the patio door.
“You can do this, cher, just follow your instincts like you did last night.”
“I’m afraid I might hurt him. What if this energy shooting out of my hands is harmful if I zap him too much? I have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it.”
“My mother said you’re a natural healer. Do what feels right and it will be fine. She said technically you don’t need training. You instinctively do what is needed for the injured person. So training will be a bonus but isn’t essential.”
“Learning from a real gypsy who is also a voodoo priestess is going to be so cool!”
Cade laughed as he held the door open for his mate. They both stopped just inside the door as they came face to face with a very excited Simon. He rushed forward and rubbed himself across her legs. If Cade hadn’t steadied her, Simon would have pushed her over in his exuberance.
“Hey, calm down, you’ve got her covered in hair,” Cade groused jokingly.
Anna was laughing so hard she slipped and landed on her rump in the kitchen. Before Cade could help her stand, Simon had her straddled and was licking her face happily.
“All right, all right, that’s enough, remove your wolf tongue from my mate or lose it.”
Simon jumped back and crouched playfully, tail wagging wildly.
“Do you want me to try to heal you more, or would you rather take a run with Cade?”
He sat so fast he almost bent his tail. That would have hurt, a lot. Panting, he waited for her to tell him what to do.
“Okay then, healing it is. Do you want to use the couch or the floor? I might be able to reach around you more easily on the floor.”
Simon chuffed happily and led them to the center of the living room. He unceremoniously laid himself out in the middle of the room and waited, tail thumping against the wood flooring.
He watched as Cade shook his head and took a seat in the corner chair. Anna was a little tentative as she figured out where best to sit and place her hands. The moment she settled on a position, he felt the energy flow from her hands to his body. He let out a huge sigh of relief and began to rumble. She gradually moved her hands around his body until her arms were wrapped around him, holding him in a gentle hug.
God, it felt so good to be held when he felt like a pile of miss matched parts and pieces instead of a complete wolf or man. He had always been in control, strong. The person everyone depended on. But that man had slowly faded week by week, minute by minute. Until it was an effort to just remember to breathe.
Shifters thrive on touch. Craved skin-to-skin contact. A need so common and easy to fulfill that you take it for granted. If you sat back and watched a room full of people carefully, you could pick out the shifters quite easily. They are the ones touching this person’s arm and then that person’s shoulder. Running their palm down a friend’s hair.
It had never occurred to him when he enlisted in the marines that a simple thing like touch and contact would be as scarce as water in the desert. When a soldier was stationed in the U.S., it was fairly easy to find human or shifter contact but put that soldier male or female in
to boot camp, on a ship, or overseas for deployment and something so freely given was a rare commodity.
A human can handle the lack of contact fairly well and learns to adapt. A shifter suffers horribly with no way to get relief or feed the need. He gets by in the beginning with a feeling of mild annoyance like when you think you have forgotten something but can’t remember what. Then it grows into a mild hunger that no amount of food will assuage. Gradually it develops into a gnawing that slowly drives the shifter into severe depression.
Simon had been discharged from the Marines in a state of deep depression. When he first returned home he’d slept all day waking only to eat. Through almost constant touch, stroking, cuddling and contact with family and shifter friends he was now able to function fairly well. He was still very quiet and withdrawn but he improved every day. It was rare to see him without someone touching him in some manner.
His whole sense of self had faded until his wolf was the only thing that held him together. So he had turned inside in order to survive. Through the love and staunch determination of his family combined with the encouragement from his wolf to rejoin the world, he was becoming the man he once was. Now, he had Anna too.
She spoke softly as they sat together on the floor for over an hour. She told him about herself, her sons, anything that came to mind.
Repeating the night before, her hands cooled, signaling she was finished for the day. As amazing as the energy felt it also wore him out. He gave her his wolfy thank you of a lick to the cheek and wondered to his bed for a nap.
The three of them fell into an easy routine. Every day he moved a little closer to the surface. Four weeks later he was able to shift and hold his human form for a short time. From that day forward he was able to hold his human form a little longer with each session. As Anna studied with Emma she learned to use the tools of a natural healer. Every few days she added a new aspect to her process, not only did she use energy, but she now incorporated herbs, crystals, and essential oils.