by JJ Jones
But still we moved everything that we could away from the fires, hoping that everything would be safe while we gathered wood for the night.
“Green branches for the smoker, dead branches for the regular fire.” I shrugged.
“How much do you think we’re going to need?” He looked to me for advice.
I liked that about him, the fact that he was willing to admit when he didn’t know something.
“I have no idea. I just learned all of this from a couple of times camping with my dad and some time spent watching survival based reality television. Most of those are spent in the jungle. At this point, I’m just trying to make do with what I can get my hands on.”
It was the truth and for some inexplicable reason, around him I was able to admit that I didn’t know something. That was nice. We guessed at how much wood we needed to make it through the night, and then made sure that we doubled it. We didn’t want to go out hunting again after we finally settled in for the night.
Our camp was as ready as it was going to be. We knew it was going to be a cold night, so we had gathered up some more bark to cover us with. It wasn’t going to quite do the job, but between sharing body heat, something to keep the wind off, and the fire, we should be able to make it through the night. At least, that’s what we were thinking.
I don’t know how it started. We had been talking, nervously trying to get to sleep in the strange place and with strange company, and then we were kissing. I think that I kissed him first, but he seemed to be just fine with the idea. His body was so close, touching me more than I had been touched in a long time. It wasn’t like this was my first kiss or anything like that, but I had spent the last year or so celibate after a badly-timed break-up with an awful man who wanted nothing more than the ability to turn me into a personal attack dog. I hadn’t been a big fan of that, and I hadn’t been ready to find a mate.
There was something in my gut however that was telling me that I might change my opinion soon. Maybe it was the strangeness of the situation or maybe it was the fact that this was all starting to feel a little exotic. It was probably the fact that we were starting to figure out this entire survival in the wilderness and the fact that the shifters that had been in the area obviously had not returned. The scent was growing colder. In general, we felt safe. Natural predators in the woods wouldn’t want to be anywhere near us. We smelled like something vastly dangerous.
I wanted to seduce him, but I wasn’t sure how. I didn’t even know if he would go along with it. I struggled with the ideas while we kissed.
“What’s wrong?” He pulled away from me, looking concerned.
“Nothing, nothing at all.” I brushed my dark curls out of my face. My twists were coming out. It wasn’t exactly my best look.
“Are you sure? Did I do something wrong?” He sounded so unsure.
“No, no, it’s nothing that you did.” I brought my hands up. “I was just thinking.”
“I understand.” But I could tell from the look on his face that he really didn’t. He thought that it was his fault.
I didn’t even know if I understood my own feelings, let alone if I could verbalize them in a way that another person could understand, but I had to try. It was time to let him know what I was thinking about. “It’s not you.”
“I understand.”
“It’s just that, I was thinking about how crazy today has been,” I admitted, looking down into my lap. I wanted to fold my hands, but that would have pulled his hand over to my leg.
“I just don’t understand why someone would do this to us. We don’t even know each other.”
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” I was happy to be in a conversation, and not leaning into him, begging for his touch with my lips.
“Would it be crazy if I was to say that I was starting to feel very close to you?” I heard the question as one arm reached up and started to trace circles on my hand.
“No, I think that it would be perfectly normal under the circumstances.”
I thought about my own feelings, about the fact that I still wanted to seduce him, to get control of something in this crazy life that we were starting to live. I didn’t understand how he could just say the right thing in that moment.
“I just feel like everything is spiraling out of control. It’s strange to wake up here, chained to someone that I don’t know. It feels weird. We just want some control over the situation. We need to regain something from our previous life,” I explained, but I wasn’t ready to go into too much detail yet.
I was trapped in the unnatural way that humans repress their own instincts, hiding behind my human side, knowing that my animal nature would have already acted.
“I wish that we would have gotten to know one another in better circumstances.” He was looking into my eyes, but this wasn’t a play for dominance.
I didn’t break the gaze. I could see the lust in his eyes and I reached for him, running my fingers over the sturdy flannel that covered his chest. It was hard as iron under that cloth, something that felt natural; like it belonged in my life.
“Maybe when we get out of this, we can spend some time together.”
“Remind me to give you my number,” he grinned, still with his hand on my arm.
Our chained hands were on the ground, within inches of each other. His finger reached out to touch my hand. I felt the electricity shudder through me. Our eyes locked onto each other. I knew that it was going to happen, and that made my stomach jump in anticipation. I had spent so many long hours so close to this man that it seemed impossible that this would not be the next step.
“I’ll give you mine too.” I whispered the words, knowing that they would be a signal for something deeper to start to blossom.
He smiled, it wasn’t a grin this time, but rather a sort of shy smile, the kind that wanted to say something that he couldn’t find the words for.
“I can’t help but notice your eyes. They’re a beautiful hazel color.”
I broke his gaze, looking down, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. “You don’t have to say that.”
“I do, because it’s true. They light up when you laugh.” He whispered the words.
I wondered how humans fell in love. It couldn’t be like this. It couldn’t be this intense. Wolves tended to pick a mate for life, but our human side allowed us to shop around. The truth was, we didn’t wait as long as humans before taking the deepest plunge, the plunge into a lifetime. I can’t say that I was ready at that time for something permanent, but I was seriously thinking about the experimentation that came before that kind of commitment.
It would be nice to feel beautiful for once in this cold and dangerous old town, the kind of place that didn’t belong in any tour guide, a place that been forgotten by the humans that seemed so intent on a disposable world. I turned back to him, staring at him. We started to kiss again. I don’t know who started it, but I didn’t care. I don’t think that he did either. His arm wrapped around my back, a magical touch that seemed to send shivers through my body. I needed this, I didn’t know why at the time, or maybe I just wasn’t willing to admit it to myself, but it had been too long since I had felt anything other than self-provided sexual pleasure.
He touched me, our bodies together. We both knew what was going to happen and he touched me in incredible ways as we struggled our way out of the clothes that prevented us from getting what we really wanted. Our bodies were hot to the touch, flaming balls of passion, attached together at the hip as his lips brushed my neck, making me shudder at his touch.
“I want you.” He was groaning, his passion taking control of his voice, making it throaty and harsh.
“I want you too.” It was all I could say, my body was awash of sensation, wherever he touched my body.
I felt my nerves rage up and I couldn’t find my way to speak anything as I felt him enter me, a strong impassioned thrust that said so many more things than I could ever hope to put into words. I felt him thrust into me and I wrapped my bod
y around him, every limb except for the one that was chained to him strained to grip his naked flesh. I was wrapped around him, a glove that needed to be filled. He was filling me with something deeper than I had imagined.
I groaned and exploded in pleasure, a rapid burst that seemed to shatter all sense of control as I howled in excitement. He groaned, and it didn’t take long for his howls to join mine. We were shattering the frigid air with the heat from our bodies, two wolves locked together in our personal passion. When he rolled off of me I felt myself shudder and shake and the sudden strike of cold air against my flesh. We hurried to dress.
“Rest, I’ll take first watch.” He smiled at me and I knew that my eyes were threatening to close no matter what he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
“We can’t stay here and hope for rescue. We have to do something.” I was looking at him, following him as he gathered more wood. “It’s too cold to stay here.” I was worried about shelter. We had to find something that would help us stay warm.
“Where do you think we should go?”
“Maybe we can follow the scent of the shifters that are around here. We can’t stay here anymore. It’s too dangerous. We’ll just die of exposure.” I pointed to the sky; clouds were forming. “I think it’s going to rain or snow soon.”
“Do you think it’s below freezing?” Devin was trying to judge the temperature, but his skin was already mostly numb. “I can’t tell.”
“If it isn’t freezing, it’s damn close. And anyway, the snow would be the least of our concerns. Rain would be the worst possibility because we would be wet in near freezing temperature. I don’t exactly see any place we could find decent cover anywhere around here.”
The roofs of the town were falling down. There was no way to hold in our warmth. This wasn’t going to end well.
“We do have the fire here.” He reminded me of that fact, and it made me a little more comfortable with waiting. Still we were waiting, stuck in a place that we really knew nothing about. I had no idea if I was even still in America. I rubbed my shoulders, not ready to respond to his comments. “I know. I’m worried too.”
He looked at me. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of both of us.”
“What kind of macho crap is that?” I asked him, a little more anger in my voice than I had originally planned.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” He looked at me, his eyes shaded a bit by something that resembled shame.
I sighed. “I know you didn’t. I’m just frustrated. Everything is going wrong and we’re trapped in this forest. I don’t even know where we are, and somehow we have to survive.”
I groaned with my own frustration, unable to really identify what I was supposed to be doing. I had to do something to fix it, to solve this mess that I had found myself in. I wasn’t exactly equipped to handle this, but I could tell that he wasn’t either. We had been denied our bestial nature, the way that we did things. We had been denied that, meaning that whoever had trapped us in this place knew what we were and what we were capable of given the freedom.
I thought about the pain that this had caused, about the kind of horror that the madman that had put me here would cause. I thought about the raw emotions, the snapping the fear that both of us were feeling. I could smell the fear on my companion. No matter how he tried to hide it, it didn’t change the creeping, putrid stench that escaped from his pores. I could smell it, I hated the smell of fear, it made me want to retch, but it wouldn’t be right. I struggled to my feet, following him until we decided what exactly we were going to do.
“Look, let’s get our heads on straight.”
“That has to be the best idea either of us has had all day.”
He looked around the place, carefully taking in our surroundings. “What do you think we should do now?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think that staying here is going to get us anywhere.” I shrugged. It was the only motion that made sense at that moment.
“Which way?” he asked.
“Follow the shifters?” I knew that it might not work very well, and on top of that, I was just mimicking the idea that he had put out into the universe. “I smell them everywhere, though. So we might have go some distance out to figure out the trail.”
“That doesn’t sound like a great idea.” He was still looking into the woods, his eyes trying to take in every detail of our surroundings.
“I know, but it’s the best that we have right now.” I glanced back to the place that we had been camping in. “How are we going to carry everything?”
“How are we going to stay warm?” He seemed to have the same concerns I had.
“Can you think of anything?” If I was going to be honest, my mind wasn’t exactly clear. I couldn’t figure out what the plan was going to be.
I smelt him first, the intruder, the wolf that had made its way to the edge of the little town. I pointed and we ducked behind something, trying to stay out of sight. We had to find him.
“That way,” I pointed.
We both turned to look, staring into the edge of the forest. We had to do something, to find the only other person that we had encountered during this entire adventure. Maybe we could finally get the answers that we were looking for. But that would only happen if we managed to capture the shifter that had come close enough for me to smell his natural odor.
I remembered what it had been like to be free, to run through the forest searching for something that I would never find, to chase a rabbit through the woods, or a deer, or any other creature that I felt it necessary to hunt. I missed that, more than I could say, and it was on my mind a lot during the ordeal. I missed my freedom, not being chained to another human being. I needed out of the cuffs, but I didn’t know how that was going to happen.
We started to chase the shifter, but we just weren’t fast enough as humans and we couldn’t get our movements lined up together. We stumbled through the underbrush, trying to find our way through the shadows, trying to be quiet and hurry. It didn’t take us long to figure out that we couldn’t do both, not like this.
So we decided on quiet, slipping through the brush like we had with the deer. This time it was different. There was a sense of freedom involved in this. This could save us. I didn’t know how. I didn’t think that this shifter would be carrying the keys to our chains, but still it was important for us to know, for us to find out what had happened.
He saw the shifter first, a grey sinewy wolf, a little skinnier than most. He looked older, a sacred elder, but I couldn’t say for sure. There was no way to know until we got closer. We had to catch the wolf. It felt strange, like it was waiting for us to get closer, bright eyes staring in our direction, but not quite at us. The eyes were yellow, intense and vivid. They were the kind of eyes that I would remember for the rest of my life. Those eyes held secrets, calm and collected, with wisdom behind them.
I couldn’t understand why I had never felt that kind of awe before. This must be what humans feel when they come face to face with one of us. I stared at the eyes, a strange feeling causing a lump to form in the back of my throat. I gulped, trying to clear the imaginary item from my breathing passage and the beast’s eyes darted in our direction. He was staring directly at me now, our eyes having met and locked together. I didn’t know who it was, but it was clear that this person wasn’t here to kill us. Still I was certain that his presence meant something, but what it meant I didn’t know. I just didn’t have the ability to figure it all out. There was something in his mouth, a bag.
“See?” I whispered and pointed and my companion nodded in agreement.
We wanted whatever was in that bag. We had to have it, but I didn’t know what was in it. I didn’t need to know. The bag itself would be useful enough. I was starting to salivate about the idea that we might have a better way to carry food with us. It would be nice when stalking through the forest, searching for some way to get out of this place, some way back to society. I didn’t know how far the closest evid
ence of human civilization was, and it didn’t really matter. I just needed to get to it. We looked at each other and nodded.
It was time to start moving. We had to do it. We burst into motion, but our target seemed to sense our plan. He ran, bursting through the woods and trying to escape from us, but he dropped something. The bag. It was the bag. There was no way to catch the other shifter, no way to ask the questions that had been rattling around in our heads, but we had the bag and it felt heavy too. We had a small celebration, chattering and happy all the way back to the little town that we had set up our camp in.
“Any chance there’s a shower in there?”
He looked into the bag. “Nope, just some food, a knife and few other things, but no shower.”
“Damn, it was worth a shot.” I shrugged, still wanting to skip through the town and throw a big party. There was no way to throw a party though, no way that we could celebrate, not really.
“Let’s just get back and we can check out what we got.”
That was the plan that he laid out and I couldn’t find any reason to argue with it. It was the idea that I had been tossing around in my head as well. Our few comforts were there, it was the closest place to home in this hellhole. We got back to our camp; it was undisturbed.
Once there, we emptied the bag and examined the treasures that we had found. It kind of felt like a setup, like those things had been left there for us to find but we were grateful for the help. There were a few things that would be useful there: a length of nylon rope, neatly coiled, small and strong, and a small utility knife. The cold red plastic felt good in my hand and I carefully traced the logo that had been imprinted into the plastic. It was Red Cross, and it felt like a little piece of home. I had always carried one of these before and while this wasn’t mine, it was close, but my name wasn’t carved into it with my wobbly childish handwriting. I had owned my knife from the time when I was a child, when my father had taken me camping, this wasn’t it, but it helped me to feel better.
There was more in the bag. He was searching for something that would mean something, something that made a difference, but there weren’t much, just a couple bottles of water. We drank them right away, intent on refilling them at the water source that we had already found. It was a plan. There were also a couple of sandwiches, burgers. I was salivating. They were cold, but still delicious. I devoured mine and he did the same. It was perfect.