by JJ Jones
The bag was empty, but something didn’t feel right. It felt off balance somehow.
“Something’s wrong.”
“What?” His eyes narrowed.
“This is too heavy for an empty bag.” I pointed, showing him how it hung with one hand.
“Huh?” He grabbed the bag and started to feel it. “There’s something here?”
My heart started to race as he tipped it over and nothing fell out. He reached in and felt every corner. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s under the lining.”
I have to admit that I was starting to get excited. Something strange was going on. I couldn’t quite place it. I pulled out the knife. “Turn it inside out. We’ll get it out.”
“Let me find the right spot.” He followed my instructions, and pointed. “It’s there.”
“Keep it from shifting.”
“Okay, but don’t cut me.”
I looked at him. “Hey, it’s not the first time I’ve used a knife. I know what I’m doing.”
He sighed. “I didn’t say that. I just think that it can be dangerous with my fingers so close,” he explained, and he was right.
I wasn’t that annoyed, anyway. I would have said the same thing and expected the exact same response. I carefully cut the lining, trying to keep as much of it intact as possible. I didn’t want to destroy the bag. I poked a finger into the hole.
“It’s metal and round.”
I pulled on the item and it was larger than I expected. The metal was the same color as our shackles, old and tarnished. My heart started to race as inch by inch a large metal object came out of small hole that I had cut. It was a key, and it didn’t take us long for shaking hands to find out that it fit in the shackles.
We were free and we could get out of there.
*
We had packed everything into the bag. My heart was still racing. “We’re being messed with.”
“That’s about as clear as glass,” he agreed.
“Hey, not all glass is clear,” I pointed out to him and we laughed.
It felt good for the cuffs to be off, we were free to head off into the forest. By far the most useful item that we had gained through the little game that was being played with us was the bag. It allowed us to pack the deer meat into it. We were ready to go.
“I’m going to change and track the scent,” I told him.
“I think that it would make more sense for me to change.” He didn’t expand on his statement.
“Why?”
“Because you can put my clothes on over yours, but I can’t put your clothes over mine.” He shrugged. “You would stay warmer in human form.”
“That makes sense.”
He stripped and handed me his clothes and pulled everything on, the second pair of socks, the extra jeans that I tied up with a length of rope and the shirt that I was able to wear like a coat. It wasn’t great, but it worked, and I slipped his shoes into the bag. There was barely enough space and I slipped the bag over my shoulder as he changed.
Even though I had changed a thousand times or more in my life, I was still drawn in when I watched someone else change. It was a slow process, holding a strange sort of elegance in its awkward nature. I shuddered at the beauty of it. It was something humans would find terrifying, I knew that, but it didn’t matter to me, to me it was beautiful. Something amazing was happening in front of my eyes as his joints popped and rearranged in front of my eyes. I stared as his body started to shrink. I saw his hair begin to grow and thicken into a thick coat of fur. It was something that belonged to nature, the metamorphosis that is so rampant in the world.
Nature had a habit of changing and then changing right back. Sometimes it was due to seasons or other things. I can’t really explain it, but I can tell you that it is the way of the world. Nature has change in its soul and that’s why we are so close to it. It’s what we are. We change things; everything about ourselves could change in the space of a breath. We drop our human skin and become something else, something bestial. We change into wolves.
He was breathtaking, a creature of nobility. It was easy to see that this man was an alpha, a creature that demanded respect. He had a dark grey coat, the color of a storm cloud. It was the most magnificent coat that I had ever seen.
“Wow.” It was all I could say and he looked at me, his eyes bright in the dim light.
He looked at me before leading the way out of the building that we were in. I followed and we took into the forest, hoping we were heading the right direction. He was going to follow the shifter that had dropped the bag and we hoped that we could find our way before it got colder. We had to get to shelter, to heat, to food. We needed those things, desperately in need of some of the comforts of modern life. We weren’t socialized to survive in the wilderness anymore. It wasn’t necessary for us to do it. We could hide in the human world and had adapted to that particular wilderness.
We walked through the day and I followed him as he tracked the shifter. I knew he was heading the right direction. I could catch the occasional whiffs of the track, but I was still in human form and so I didn’t have the same ability to track that he had.
I stumbled a few times and he turned to me every time. Moving my direction, he used his body to help me up out of my situation. I needed a little help and I could tell that he was starting to feel a little weak as well.
“Lunch?” I asked, knowing we both wanted to hurry through the woods, but we needed to break.
The wolf that was with me nodded and we were ready to stop. It didn’t take us long to find a nice clearing with a log. It would be a lovely setting for a picnic.
“This would be nice if we weren’t trapped here.” I heard him speaking behind me.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had changed back.”
I turned to him, and was confronted by the sight of his naked body. It was something that surprised me, but it was a pleasant surprise. He was delicately sculpted. I blinked twice as I looked at him.
“I didn’t mean to surprise you.” He grinned at me, noticing the part of his body that my eyes were locked on.
“It’s okay, I just wasn’t expecting it.” I blinked again, still not sure how to react to the sight of his body.
My eyes were locked on his manhood as it started to stir under my gaze. I didn’t know how else to respond.
“That’s fine.” He wanted to ask something, but he didn’t. I could tell that much from the tone his voice. The words had been left off, like he was still making decisions.
“What did you need?” I wanted to know what his question was, but I still couldn’t look at his face immediately.
I tore my eyes away from his crotch and looked at his face. He was grinning, something behind his eyes told me that he knew exactly what I was thinking about.
“Did you need some help warming up? Or did you want me to get dressed?” He was teasing me.
I smiled, but was only trying to mask how nervous I was. “I’m sorry.” I started to remove his clothes from over mine.
“Hey.” He reached up to touch my arm. “Are you doing all right?” There was concern in his voice. Something about it was comforting.
“I’ve been better, but I’m sure you have been too.”
“Eh, I can’t complain about the company.” His eyes sparkled as I continued to remove the shirt. “I would really appreciate a small space heater though.”
“If only that was in the bag.” I pointed and grinned at the bag that I was carrying over my shoulder. I had put the bag down on a log while I worked to remove his clothes. I had the shirt off.
“Can you help me with this rope?”
His gentle hands started to work at the knot. “Are you sure that we can’t just cut this?” I could hear his voice as he looked down at my waist. The way that he was bent down, I could see the top of his head as he reached down. “This knot just tightened up.”
“I don’t really want to waste the rope.”
“I don�
��t blame you. I’ll work on it.” He knelt before me, carefully working on the rope with practiced hands. “I don’t tie women up often, or untie them for that matter.”
“Are you flirting with me?”
“What would you say if I was?” He looked up and grinned at me before he went and started to work on the knot with his teeth.
“I don’t know. I guess I kind of like it.” I smiled at him.
“That’s good. I like the little way you blush when I flirt with you.” I hadn’t expected such bluntness from him. I just stared at him. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
“I-I-I don’t mind. I don’t think that I do.” I still didn’t really know how to respond to him. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“I don’t see why, you’re beautiful.” He stood up as the pants fell off of my legs and brushed the hair back from my face. “You have no idea how beautiful you are.”
“I don’t think that this is necessary to survival,” I fumbled over the words.
“Is it?” He asked the question, his voice harsh with something related to lust.
It didn’t sound quite right to be described as that, but I couldn’t think of any better words. Perhaps I was blocking the word that my mind was reaching for. “I-I-I don’t really know how to respond to this.”
“Oh, do you have a mate at home?” He shocked me with that question. “I knew it was too good to be true.” He looked down at his naked feet.
I slipped his pants off over my shoes. “No, it’s not that. Not at all. I don’t have a mate. I haven’t really been interested in taking one before.” I told him the truth, but I didn’t know why I had said it that way. My mind was in knots.
“Before, does that mean you’re interested in taking one now?” He cornered my words.
“I don’t know anymore. Everything just kind of feels weird.” I explained it to him, not really knowing what was going on in my jumbled mess of words. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.” It was the most honest thing I had ever said in my life. “I mean I’ve always been looking for something. I just never knew what it was.”
“Is there any chance that I could help you find it?” He asked the question and I didn’t really know how to respond. It was the first time that I had ever been so blunt with someone, and I was shocked by his response. I didn’t say anything. “Am I being too pushy?”
“No, no, I just wasn’t expecting anything like this.” I looked at him. “To be honest, I hadn’t really told anyone this before. I didn’t expect to be talking about my own personal problems during this. This doesn’t exactly seem to be the right time or place.”
He moved closer. He was just wearing his jeans now but other than that, he was naked. I could feel the heat flowing off of his skin. “It’s okay. I don’t mean to be pushy. I’ve been looking for something too. I just had no idea what I was doing, what I was looking for, but when I look at you.” He looked down, shame crossing his face. “I don’t know, it’s too early, I know this. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do this.”
“I didn’t mean to push.” I hadn’t been pushing. I knew that, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“I just feel like I’ve known you for years. I can see the pain in your face and I want to take all of that pain away.” He couldn’t look me in the eye when he told me those words.
I stood there, staring at him, laid bare before me. I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was going to do about what he was saying. The kind of confession that he had just made meant something, it was important and I didn’t know how to respond.
“I-I-I—” I started to say something, but didn’t know how I was going to say it.
“You don’t have to say anything. I’m sorry that I brought it up. We’ve only known each other for a day or two. It isn’t right for me to do this to you.” He held my hand and I could feel the sparks starting to fly across my skin. There was something about his touch.
“Does deer meat sound good for lunch?” I looked down at the bag, trying to change the subject.
He looked at me, grateful for something new to discuss. “Sounds wonderful.”
There was a bright smile on his face. I served out the meat, but we didn’t start a fire. We had a lot of things to focus on. We drank some of the water that we had gathered from the spring before we had left. It was a lunch steeped in silence. It felt like we had both said to much as we ate and neither of us could find a comfortable place to start into speaking again. We were both awkward. It was almost like being back in high school, unable to find the right way to say what we needed to say, and unable to take back what had already been said.
We finished our meal in awkward silence and he stripped again. He was going to change back into his wolf form and didn’t want his clothes to change with him. I watched him change through shaded eyes. I didn’t really find a way to hide my glances too much, but he ignored what I was doing. I was grateful for that. I really didn’t want to find myself trapped in another awkward conversation. The truth was, I didn’t know how we were going to respond to what had been said. A part of me thought we would never see each other again after this. That frightened me. I had grown so close to this man, so attached that I almost wanted our ordeal to continue so that we wouldn’t have to say goodbye.
While we walked, I thought about mating. I wondered what it would be like. I had explored the possibilities in my mind a thousand times. It wasn’t like I wasn’t allowed to physically explore before I picked a mate, but eventually I was expected to choose someone. I hadn’t had much interest in mating before, not really. There were so many rules, so many considerations to the way that we lived our life. We also had a natural urge to mate for life. It was what we had always done and it had been the way that we kept our society going.
We mated for life. It was the way that it had always been and every tale that I had heard was about a mated pair. Still, I wondered what it would be like to live that kind of life. I had heard and seen humans marry, but it wasn’t the same. Mating couldn’t be taken lightly, it was something to carefully explore and test. It was something full of ritual and making sure that the pair is compatible. It is fair and compassionate. It is something that isn’t ended with something as simple as divorce. Many wolves never mate. They don’t find themselves compatible with anyone and able to remember the tests.
I tried to remember the tests involved but for some reason it was all fuzzy. I remembered that things would go slowly, there would be tests, but what were the tests and why couldn’t I remember? If I was to be honest about it, I hadn’t always paid much attention. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would never have to find a mate.
I had enjoyed my freedom. I still enjoyed my freedom, but lately I had been getting lonelier and lonelier. Something had been missing. I was still unwilling to admit I needed a companion for life. After all, I was a strong, confident woman. I can’t say that I would have been against it if I had found a mate through a natural means. If I had found a man and slowly found myself falling in love with him, I would have considered it. I wasn’t entirely against the concept of mating. I just hadn’t been actively seeking it.
I followed him through the woods until the snow began to fall. We had to get some shelter built and a fire roaring before it got too cold and too wet. He changed back to his human form and he dressed. We were still avoiding conversation, still too nervous to find ourselves in a conversation. We worked in silence and we knew our parts.
I searched for firewood and he began to build a shelter for the night. We would be spending another night in the wilderness, surrounded by the drifting white snowflakes. I held out my hands and felt the cold wetness as it melted on my palm. I finished my job in a hurry, heading back to start the fire. I used a stone that we had found earlier, a bit of flint that we had used to start the previous fire, and the manacles that we had used to start the spark. It was getting wetter, and deeper snow forming over us as time went by.
CHAPTER FIVE
We had set
up the camp in relative silence, but we were going to have a cold night in the woods. I wondered if we were going to make it through this without a blanket, nothing to hold warmth. Devin had extended the shelter to cover the fire, a way to hold the warmth inside. There was a hole above the fire that allowed the smoke to escape from the small, temporary home that we had made.
We were going to have to cuddle together for the night. The snow was starting to fall harder and harder. It was going to be a cold night. Somehow, in the time that I had gathered the wood and started the fire, he had made a nice little bed in the tent. It was actually rather comfortable as we settled in for the night.
“Should someone keep an eye out, in case the shifters come around?” he asked. He was chewing on his lip.
I almost laughed at how cute he looked when he was nervous. “I think we’ll be fine, but if you’re more comfortable that way, you can go out into the snow.”
“The snow doesn’t look very comfortable. It’s starting to get kind of warm in here.”
“I just wish that the cold hadn’t gotten into my bones.” I groaned.
Now that we had found a way to start the conversation, it was easy to talk to him. It felt like nothing had really changed between us. We were quite possibly closer than we had been before the strained admissions that we had made. I wrapped my arm around him.
“Can I borrow some of that body heat?” I knew what I was actually asking, but didn’t know if I wanted him to be able to translate my question or not.
“Sure.” He turned toward me.
We were burrowed in the leaves with some meat heating up over the fire. We had half a bottle of water each. It was all we had left and we had to make it last. I was going to save mine, carefully guarding it for a couple of sips after I had eaten the dried meat.