“Monster,” he murmured into my ear, as I found his thick warmth with my hand; I was too distracted to give him any kind of rhythm, but he didn’t argue with my stuttering movements. His own rhythm didn’t shift. I tried to listen to his words past the exquisite pleasure sparking through me. “There’s a monster inside of you. A wolf. She will devour you, soul first, and there will be nothing left of you but the wolf. But I can save you. We can save you. Together. We can save you.”
And then his swift, strong fingers carried me over into oblivion. I collapsed against him, sated and gasping, lost and found, and for the first time in years, everything made sense. I was draped across him, sleep stealing me away even though I was sitting up, and I heard him say something, far away. But he could not have said what I thought I heard. No. That would ruin everything.
I woke up, curled on my side. I was still in the woods; it was still dark. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I didn’t have that gritty, slick feeling that comes with sleeping round the clock, so my money was on just a few hours. I felt refreshed. Human. I went to sit up, and the heavy weight of his arm over my chest and his leg over my hip stopped me.
Ugh. I hated this part. I really, really hated this part. Especially when I was going to have to rely on him for a ride home. I really preferred when I faded into mystery, half a dream. That was good. No one looked as nice once the first blush faded. Why even stick around to be disappointed?
The moon had come up while we were sleeping. It was waning quickly, after the full. I stared at it for a long time, waiting to feel differently. To feel anything. Even feeling numb would be an improvement over this void. Because if I—was what he said I was, it was just a matter of time, wasn’t it?
“It won’t bother you yet,” he said. I didn’t jump; I’d heard his breathing change when he woke. “It’ll get worse as the month passes, and in two and a half weeks, it’ll be irresistible, but right now?” I looked back at him, and he gave a smooth, very naked shrug. “Just a pretty disk in the sky.”
“It’s late,” I said, and wondered where my bra had ended up. Seeing him on his side, head propped on his elbow, made me feel much more naked than I had a moment ago. He reached out to touch me, and I flinched away. “My mom will be worried.” Holy crap. Could I sound any younger?
His face clouded over. “You don’t believe it.”
“Believe what?” I slipped out from under him, and started looking for my clothes. My jeans were soaked still, and clammy against my thighs as I pulled them on. My underwear were totally MIA. My bra had gotten torn in the festivities. “That there’s a legendary evil monster somehow trapped inside me? And that you have a top secret way to save me?”
He made no move to get dressed, just put his hands behind his head and watched me. “Basically.”
“Basically.” I laughed. “The really screwed up thing?” I found my t-shirt and pulled it on; the cold, wet fabric clung to my breasts, highlighting every shadow. That caught his attention. I couldn’t help running my hands down the sides, ostensibly to smooth out the cloth. “I do believe you. Something is happening to me, and your explanation? Sick as it is, it makes sense. And now I want to go home.”
His eyes devoured me. His hands strayed up his thighs for a minute—and then he sighed. “Caitie, you’re going to be okay.” He sat up, took my hand, and tugged me down beside him. “We’ll fix this.”
I wanted to snort with laughter. “You know what I want?”
“What?”
“To wake up feeling rested somewhere other than the woods. To stop feeling like there is someone inside of me, trying to steal my skin. I want to slap you and walk away from you and tell all my friends what a freak you are.”
“So why don’t you?” His eyes were smoldering. If it were up to him, we’d probably just stay here until dawn. Maybe forever. Pretend that whatever was happening was just a bad dream.
“Because I should be sore. Because I should be gutted, or dead.” He touched my face, and I turned my lips into his palm. The beast—the wolf—pushed into his skin, craving his touch. I wanted to run away. “I just want to go home and sleep. Please.”
He leaned forward to kiss me, and I didn’t stop him. His free hand curled around my waist, snugging me up against him—how good could that really feel to him, pressed against wet cotton?—the hand on my cheek sliding back and tangling with my messy hair. He deepened the kiss, smashing into me, and I let him. I heard all the same happy, encouraging sounds coming out of my throat, felt my hands kneading his shoulders, moving to his bare ass. I felt him stiffening against me.
But for all the happy sounds I was making, part of me was bored, checking my nails, over the entire experience already. This was why I didn’t come back for seconds, why I never bothered to try and sort a relationship out. What was the point, when this always happened, when I turned into this cold statue? A couple times in college, I’d tried to work with it. I’d tried waiting to sleep with the guy, and I’d tried not waiting. I’d tried talking about it, and not talking about it. End analysis—I was just broken. Sooner or later, Wes would realize. They always did. It would be kinder to just walk away from him now, to laugh and point, to get back to Meredith Falls on my own, somehow. But it had been so nice before, to be warm, while he was kissing me. I’d stay for a little while longer. At least he didn’t think I was crazy. That was something. He buried his face in my neck and took this huge, sighing inhale, and then let it out in a rush. “You’re wonderful,” he said, and the tension in my belly twisted up another notch.
“You too,” I said. “But I really need to get home. Okay?”
“Wouldn’t it be great to just stay here?” he said, and I thought about clawing his face off. He didn’t notice my irritation; his eyes were far away, watching a different world. “To be free? To make the world wild again? To be a part of that?”
I picked myself up off his lap, trying not to be completely awkward. “Not really,” I said. “I like my house with its roof, and my cell phone, and my eBook. I like to go to places like this, but I like to go home again.”
He studied me for a long moment, sliding into his wet jeans with an ease that I never would have managed. He picked up the blankets, doused the candles, packed it all back up in the duffle bag. He picked up his wet t-shirt and tucked that away as well. The thin moonlight on the smooth muscles of his back was aesthetically pleasing. I stood there like an idiot, clenching my hands together. I liked the precision of his movements, the way he expended the least possible energy with each reach and stretch. Finally, he turned back to me and gave me a chaste little kiss, off center on my lips.
“Then let me take you home,” he said, threading his fingers through mine. I found a smile somewhere, and showed it to him, like a little girl with a picture she’d painted just that afternoon.
In the ride to this little escapade, we’d been horny and eager. Now, he was making eyes at me, and I was broken. He kept touching my knee, and the back of my hand, and I wanted to slap him incredibly hard. A regular girl would have been delighted. A regular girl would have been happy with her catch and pleased with her night. I sat on my hands and focused on not screaming.
“So,” I said, and my voice sounded like a ton of bricks crashing down. “What’s the plan?”
“Plan?” He looked over at me for a minute, his eyebrows all innocently furrowed.
“Well, given my druthers, I’d prefer not to have my soul devoured slowly by an evil monster of legend.”
“Did you just say druthers?”
“Yes, because I am a cranky old woman.” He was grinning, and I tried to keep my serious face on. “So. Plan. Expound. Pretend that I am James Bond, and I’m tied up and at your mercy.”
His eyes stayed on the road, but the smile that quirked up the corner of his mouth was full of smoky heat. For a minute, the bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I remembered why I’d agreed to this whole thing in the first place. “If I had you tied up,” he said, low and husky, “I wouldn
’t be talking.”
I cleared my throat, as if that would cover the heat that had rushed into my cheeks. “Are you just insatiable or what?”
He shrugged, still giving me that stomach melting look. “Some things are too good to resist.” His eyes lingered on my breasts, with their tips perfectly highlighted by damp cotton. I not very subtly crossed my arms over my chest, earning myself a confused look.
“I feel certain that there are wolves out there, trotting across the tundra, with less stamina than you. Color me impressed.” My finger couldn’t land on what was suddenly making me so uncomfortable, but I couldn’t quite let it go, either.
“There are perks,” he said. “To this whole situation.”
“Which situation?”
“My involvement with supernaturals. It leaves me…stronger. Faster. More durable.”
“What is your involvement, anyway?”
His turn to look shifty and uncomfortable. “It’s complicated.”
I decided to let his evasion stand for the moment. “Could you heal from being eviscerated?”
Another sideways look. “Don’t know. Never really tried.”
“Well, I don’t recommend it. Even if it heals, it hurts like a bitch when it’s happening.” I sighed. “All this witty banter just to distract me from the fact that there is no plan, huh?” And why couldn’t I hear him? I heard everyone else these days, but he was a wall of white noise.
“There is absolutely a plan.”
“What is it? In plain English.”
He squirmed in his seat like a kid who had to tinkle. “Save your soul. Before the next full moon.”
“And how does that happen?”
More fidgeting. “Look, I expected it to take you a lot longer to accept the whole ‘I’m turning into a werewolf’ theory. I thought I’d have more time to research.”
My laughter sounded cold and tired, even to me. “I thought I’d have more time, too.”
A worried look this time. “We’ll get through this—”
“There is no us,” I snapped. “Just me. Just me, just my soul apparently at risk. Nice of you to worry, but realistically? Just my ass on the line.”
“But…” Why did he look so distressed? This wasn’t news to him, or it shouldn’t have been. I mean, it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to accept his help, if he was offering it, but the outcome of all of this would have no effect on him.
A headache was strong and pulsing behind my eyes. I was starving and sore and worn through. Whatever mystical force had been holding me up, it had just run out. “Do me a favor,” I said, my jaw tight, a heartbeat away from screaming.
“Anything,” he said, and I managed to do no more than roll my eyes.
“Just drive. Don’t talk, don’t hit on me, don’t try and reassure me. Just drive me home.”
There was a long, frozen silence, then finally, “Sure. Okay. Fine.”
I bit my tongue. It was not my job to explain myself. He could live with it, or he could talk about it, but I didn’t have to…do this thing. This dance. I’d done it for years, with—other people. I was allowed to be done.
I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. After a little bit, he turned on the radio, quietly—to classical music, which I would not have predicted—and in the space between one chord and the next, I drifted off.
The car stopped, jostling me awake. “Wake up, sleeping beauty,” he said, one hand resting just above my knee. “We’re back.”
“Mmm.” I stretched against the seatbelt, arching my back, and his hand slid up my thigh. I expected to feel that same leaden deadness that had been part and parcel of everything for so long, but—maybe it was because I was drowsy, maybe it was because he was looking at me so carefully—a slow, faint drizzle of sparkles danced up my spine. “It’s super late, isn’t it?”
“No.” I managed to open my heavy eyes, and he was smiling at me. “It’s very, very early.”
I laughed, and his hand tightened gently, for just a moment. “Do you want to come inside?”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, a slow smile on his lips. “Really?”
“We never really ate. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
If he was disappointed, or thought I’d been talking about something else, he didn’t show it. “If you don’t mind, that would be wonderful. We did rather skip dinner.”
For one moment, I wondered how old he actually was. There’d been no reason to discuss it, and he didn’t really look to be that much older than me, if at all, but who in their twenties talked like that? Then the boyish, eager grin came back, and I wondered if he was actually younger than me. He pressed his lips to the back of my knuckles, like a knight in shining armor, or a kid who’d seen too many romantic movies. Even though I thought I knew better, my heart beat sped up, and the pressure against my skin increased. Young or old, he was apparently not short on stamina. And that thought did not slow my heartbeat at all.
“My mom is definitely asleep by now,” I said. “And my bed is small, but more comfortable than pine needles. Plus, food.”
His eyebrows raised for a moment. Could he read my mind? Did he know I’d never invited anyone to my room, ever? The couch, the floor, even my mother’s bed on one epic occasion—they’d all seen action during my adventurous youth, but never my room. Not even once, not even a kiss. But no, all that I could find wandering through his mind was garden variety lust. Old fashioned, and good for what ails you.
“Are we really going to eat?” he asked, turning my hand over in his and pressing his lips against the inside of my wrist.
“I can’t for the life of me think why we would,” I said, breathless and sore and squirmingly damp all over again.
His eyes moved up. “We don’t have to. You don’t have to.” But then his tongue was doing something on the inside of my wrist, and his hand was sliding further up my thigh, and I sighed open, my knees falling apart.
“What if I want to?” I breathed.
I felt his smile against the pulse in my wrist. “Then we should go inside.”
He helped me down out of his absurdly tall car, and then I led him up the walk. We stopped twice in the fifteen feet as he pulled me against him and kissed me, full and hard, somehow more present than he’d been in the woods. The pressure against my skin was tremendous, but not as frightening as it had been. I was so intent on him, on the way his finger tightened on my hip just a breath shy of pain, that I almost missed that the front door was cracked open. His lips were on my neck, and he was laughing into my skin as I pushed him sharply away. He stumbled a few steps back, like I’d shoved hard, or like he was drunk, and then he was moving me gently behind him and slowly pressing the door open with the back of his hand.
All the lights were off. Mom hadn’t even left the porch light on. I should have noticed that. Before the door. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in myself, I would have noticed that.
Wes moved into the house, completely silent, checking rooms and behind doors. I stayed behind him, trying not to cling to his coat tails like a chick in a horror movie. Nothing seemed any more out of place than what had passed for normal the past few days anyway. But then, it was pitch black, once we’d passed out of the small rectangle of light from the front door. Unless there was overturned furniture, I probably wouldn’t notice signs of theft. Or a struggle.
Wes had already cleared the living room, and now he was standing in front of Mom’s door. It was my turn to push him behind me. He looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded and let me past him.
Mom’s door was open the width of my hand. Her dark curtains were drawn over the windows, making her room dark and tomblike. My pulse was a thrum in my ears as I slowly pushed the door open. I knew what was going to happen. I was going to turn on the hall light, hoping not to wake my slumbering mother, but instead, it would be just enough light to illuminate her mutilated body and the bloody sheets on which she lay. The thing that had attacked me in the woods had tracked me here, and it had gotten i
n, and it had killed her like it had tried to kill me, only no magical healing was going to save her. She would just be gone, and then it would come for me. To finish what it had started. It would be a fitting end to my story.
I flicked on the hallway light. And saw my mother tangled up in her sheets, her head thrown back at an unnatural angle. A scream burbled up in my throat—then turned to laughter as I saw what was actually there. A drunk, passed out in bed, sheets in disarray around her. As I moved closer, she let out a huge, rumbling snore, and I laughed again as I pulled her up onto her pillow, and dragged the covers over her. She was still in her work clothes; she’d never changed after we left. She must not have shut the front door tightly, either. The wind must have blown it open. I thought about putting her into pajamas, or at least taking her slacks off, so they wouldn’t be wrinkled beyond repair—but it was mostly because I wanted to believe she’d wake me up and tell me to stop, tell me to leave her alone. But she wouldn’t. I’d just hauled her dead weight up to her pillow, and she hadn’t even noticed. She was dead to the world.
I pulled her door shut again as I stepped back into the hallway. Wes had retreated to the living room couch and turned on a lamp. “Everything all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine,” I said. “She must have fallen asleep reading.”
He gave me a level, unblinking look, but he didn’t say anything. He reached a hand out to me, drawing me in close to him. I curled up against his side, trying to find the peace and spark I’d felt in the car. He kissed the top of my head, then tilted my chin up and pressed his lips down onto mine, soft and gentle, and it should have made my heart flutter, but finding her like that—it was the cold shower to end all cold showers. I let him kiss me, but I didn’t kiss him back. When his fingers started their trip up my thigh again, I pressed my knees together until he sighed and drew his hand back.
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