Coveted

by Shawntelle Madison

  But when an alpha male like Thorn spoke, I had to obey. My body contorted and the change enveloped me. I fell over the precipice and surrendered to the wolf chained within. The process of changing into a werewolf isn’t the most beautiful thing. Only the older wolves like my parents and grandmother could meld into the wolf like warm mercury in a vial.

  My mother told me the pain of change for a pup is similar to the pain of childbirth. She’d told me that our transformation wasn’t shape-shifting into a new form, but into the body we were meant to be within. Thus the pain from the broken, shifting bones—the contorting limbs—was the punishment for the human to bear. I guess the older wolves had paid their dues. Thankfully, I’ve found that as I’ve grown older, the change has been less painful. But once in a while I still groan when my femur snaps in half like fragile spaghetti.

  In my new form, the forest unfolded into millions of scents and sounds. From the rhythmic notes of the blackbirds to the urgent croaks of the frogs. I rolled onto my back and savored the music. After my transformation, I was free from my bonds. The wolf didn’t care about the damp darkness around me. Only the closest interesting smell. Out here there was no such thing as organization, only impulse and carnal cravings. No drug compared to feeling this free.

  Thorn circled my body twice before he bit at my heels. Time to move. He set off with a brisk pace away from the coast—and deeper into the forest. His gray-and-black form darted ahead through the brush.

  After a mile he caught the scent of a cottontail. In seconds, we went from a relaxing trot to a full run. My senses were now so sharp I could even hear the rabbit’s heartbeat echoing against my skull. As I gave chase, a trail of clues revealed the animal’s path—from a disturbed branch to tiny footprints left in the soil. All the little details I clung to during the day—the wolf cared nothing for them.

  Thorn bounded over a rotten oak and drove another cottontail from its hiding place. I left his side to chase my prey. For three minutes, I pursued the rabbit. But I had no desire to end its life tonight—the wolf was more than happy to simply run and hunt.

  Of course, that didn’t stop Thorn from returning to my side with his cottontail in his mouth. He deposited the lifeless animal at my feet and circled to lie beside me. Dinner? I hadn’t eaten wild game—or should I say, recently dead game—in years.

  The warmth of his body next to mine brought a comfort I didn’t want to let go. For just that moment, hope floated from our private grove into the night sky.

  I woke up a few hours later. In the time that I’d slept, Thorn had left my clothes in a haphazard pile beside me. My nakedness didn’t bother me. What did bother me was the bereft feeling of waking alone. I missed those moments in the past when we’d gone out into the woods and run free before making out like horn dogs into the morning. But that was more than five years ago. Baggage sucked.

  I was in the middle of throwing on my bra and skirt when Thorn emerged from the trees dressed in his jeans.

  “I didn’t expect you to come by the house earlier,” he said.

  So he knew what had happened at his father’s house.

  I took a deep breath and wiped the dew from my legs.

  “With Wendell’s disappearance and the Long Island werewolves coming in and all, I thought it would be a good idea to align myself with the pack. The safest thing to do.” I avoided his eyes, but I knew he was assessing me.

  I glanced at him briefly, only to catch him staring at my breasts. He hadn’t changed a bit.

  “You know as well as I do that I would protect you.”

  “I’m an outsider. I don’t see that happening.”

  “You know that’s not true.” He took a step forward and placed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I thought I’d have more time to prepare …”

  I licked my dry lips. “What did you find out at Wendell’s place?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, Thorn. What happened to his girlfriend?”

  A lone muscle in his neck twitched. He gave no other sign that the worst news was yet to come. “We found a trail not far from the house as well as four sets of footprints. They dragged two people out of the house and their trail ended at the edge of the forest.”

  I opened my mouth to press him further, but he spoke before I could. “We found her blood on the ground along with a piece of her shirt. Other than that, we don’t know if they’re dead or alive.”

  “Who’s the tracker?” I wondered if one of the Stravinskys had been asked.

  “Rex’s on it now.”

  The forest around us was quiet, a little too quiet for my current mood. Thorn sat down beside me. He scooted close enough for heat to rise between our bodies—yet far enough away that we didn’t touch. Those lips beckoned me to kiss them. And the wolf in me begged for release.

  “I asked my father in your stead to allow you entry,” Thorn said.

  I laughed. “I’m sure he told you no as well.”

  “That he did.”

  I swallowed deeply. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “It does to me. I told him that I’d refuse to become alpha if he didn’t let you in.”

  “You did what?” I prepared to stand, but his arm snaked out and held me down beside him. He released me, but his hand paused as if he wanted to touch me again.

  “Somehow, someway, you will become part of the pack again, Natalya.”

  “He evidently doesn’t think I’m fit to be a part of it.”

  “Well, I do.” He sighed. “I escape this place to start a new life, only to come back to a falling house of cards. But the one thing I didn’t expect to find here was you.”

  He didn’t speak for a few minutes. “When I left San Diego, I returned home and found mountains of responsibility. Much more than one person should bear.” He shook his head. “Seeing your future laid out in front of you gets old.”

  Curious now that he’d finally opened up, I asked, “What did you do?”

  “I used my business degree to work as a manager in a tech company.” He shrugged. “Shirt-and-tie kind of thing while rotting away in a cubicle.”

  “Must’ve been nice since you wanted to leave here so bad.” And leave me behind.

  “Sunshine and oceanfront property is nice and all, but there’s nothing like the northeast.” He gazed out into the trees. “Do you remember our first time together out in the forest?”

  “Yes.” I thought of it every time I hunted with him.

  He laughed at the memory and leaned in to brush his fingers against my knee. “I have no idea how you survived that first semester without hunting.”

  “Well, sightings of large wolves roaming the campus wouldn’t have exactly helped with student and faculty recruitment.”

  “True, but you’re not a human. You’re a werewolf.”

  The memories of enjoying my freedom with him filled my senses. Thorn had taken a fellow South Toms River gal and whisked her away into a state park north of Pittsburgh. During spring break, while other college kids enjoyed the beaches, we hunted, we slept, and—for the first time—I made love with someone. Not just sex, but all-consuming, back-bending, good-God-where-did-that-fifth-orgasm-come-from sex. I sucked in a deep breath at the thought. How easily he triggered the hungry wolf within me.

  “We had a few good years,” I said. “But college is about transitioning into adulthood. A job. A new place to live.” I hoped my words had strength behind them.

  “I still shouldn’t have left. I chickened out. Not only did I leave behind all those things my dad wanted for me, but I left you behind as well.”

  In the weeks after he’d left, I’d wondered what my answer would’ve been if he’d asked me to go with him. Would I have willingly left my family? The life I’d made in New York City?

  He continued. “Now I have to protect the pack. And we both know Will isn’t ready to assume leadership. Not only do I have to worry about everyone, but my father is making long-ter
m plans for the Granthams to join with the Holdens. A power merger with a marriage.” He rubbed his eyes as if the burdens of the pack weighed him down.

  So that was it. He’d made a deal. Someday he might mate with Erica and I’d be left alone again. How did I get myself into such a mess? Did he even know I still wanted him?

  His fingers twitched near my thigh—so close, yet so far away. “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something. This isn’t over yet.”

  Every word Farley had said echoed through my head, but Thorn’s lingered too.

  I had a chance. And I refused to go down without a fight. Broken or not, I had the drive to succeed—and soon enough I would rejoin the pack.

  Chapter 5

  Don’t you have a Greyhound bus you need to catch to head west?” I asked Aggie. For the third time, I sorted through a box of Hanukkah items. Not the average after-work activity.

  “I can’t leave my good friend with the threat of an attack looming.” Aggie used a poker to stir the fire before she made another s’more.

  I huffed. “An attack isn’t coming yet. Thorn told me he reinforced the patrols in the area. And anyway, we both know you wouldn’t stay here to hang out while a pack of angry werewolves breaks into my house.”

  “Well, by that point I’ll have the bus ticket, and I can go wait at the bus station while they burn your cottage down. I may even be nice and help you haul out your boxes.”

  My mouth gaped and then I laughed. “You’d better not run away from them. Come here. I need backup to protect my little friends.”

  “Your little friends? Do you have an ornament vibrator in there? Now that would give me a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.”

  I threw a graham cracker at her head. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

  She snorted. “I sure am.” Somehow she stuffed an entire s’more into her mouth.

  “That’s your third one. Aren’t you full?”

  For a moment, a guilty look flashed over her face. “Not really. Did you want one?”

  How did she maintain her figure? It had to be her werewolf genes. “No, thanks. But we do need to make a trip to the store.”

  “You’re storing enough food here for the next apocalypse. The deep freezer downstairs could hold a dead body.”

  “Maybe I should take your measurements for it.” I stood and placed the ornaments back in their box. “I want to pick up a few cleaning supplies.”

  Aggie rolled her eyes. “Oh, I forgot. I spread disease.”

  I wanted to deny her statement, but I couldn’t come up with a truthful statement. Instead, I continued with, “I also need to look at clothes.”

  She started to put the s’more ingredients away. “Why do you need more clothes? You dress nice all the time. In the same outfit, if I may add without hurting your feelings.”

  “Well, I’ve decided to try to improve myself. And that means stirring the pot, so to speak.”

  She paused as she kindly placed the food exactly where she’d found it. “What’s wrong with how you are now? Other than hoarding holiday stuff—”

  “It’s been five years since you’ve seen me, and I don’t have much to show for it. I have a house, a job. But other than that I don’t have much else.” The boxes almost swallowed the hallway. Most of the time they looked so imposing. “I want something more. A relationship, maybe. And the only way to jump on that horse is to buy some clothes for a date.”

  “With Thorn?”

  “Not yet. He’s sort of not available.”

  “Are you ready to ask a guy out?”

  “It’s already happened.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “You mean you asked a guy out while you were at work today?”

  I cringed as I remembered the encounter. Of all the men to take the plunge with, I’d asked the last person in town I’d actually want to date.

  I recounted to her how, while I was pondering my next move, I spotted Quinton, the janitor for The Bends, wiping off the counters. The guy had the goth thing going for him, with his slicked-back raven-colored hair and midnight eyes. He towered over everyone in the place, and slinked around casting spells. Creepiness followed our resident necromancer like an army of brain-gobbling zombies.

  And yet somehow, after I’d chanted to myself, “Starting fresh. Starting fresh,” I’d walked up to Quinton and asked him what his plans for the upcoming weekend were.

  No one had ever asked him such a question before, so he stammered for a moment. “N-nothing really. Just another weekend working in my herb garden, I guess.”

  Before I lost my nerve (and since I’d already jumped off the deep end) I had asked him if he wanted to go to Roger’s Place for some Italian with me. I more or less expected him to say no and end my embarrassing test-drive. To my horror, though, he replied, “An evening out sounds like fun. I’ve never been there before. But I heard their cannoli is divine.”

  After asking Quinton out, I realized that it had been our longest conversation ever since I’d started working at The Bends. Most of the time, I didn’t need a drawn-out speech to talk to him about the overflowing garbage or the two pending orders for a furniture pickup at the dock. Bill had told me that during Quinton’s spare time he used herbs from his garden to stuff the recently deceased like Thanksgiving turkeys and bring them back to life. I told myself that with all the crazy men out there I could’ve done a lot worse.

  And that was how I’d managed to snag a date on Friday with a necromancer.

  Aggie laughed as she picked up her purse to leave the house. “You are not going out with that guy. I’ll ask out the first sane man I see at the grocery store for you before I let you go out with him. Even my dad has more French fries in his Happy Meal than a janitor who spends his free time practicing necromancy.”

  As we drove into the shopping center’s parking lot, I said, “I can’t do that to him. He’s a nice guy.”

  “A nice, creepy necromancer. Do you know what those guys do? Do I need to spell out necrophilia?”

  I frowned and selected a parking spot. “Not every necromancer is having a personal party with the dead bodies they conjure.”

  “How do you know?”

  Once we got to the store, I knew her silence meant I’d won—for now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Aggie showed up with the local insurance guy for a lunch date. We patrolled the aisles for my cleaning items. Aggie of course balked when we passed the chips aisle.

  “Why can’t I buy Cheetos?”

  “You get orange dust all over everything. I thought I had issues. You practically carry an open bag every time I turn around.”

  Agatha pursed her lips and paused long enough to grab a bag of barbecued chips. She thought I didn’t see, but I thought I’d give her until the checkout lane to give them up.

  With my cleaning supplies in my basket, we waited at the only available checkout line. Aggie, ever impatient, glanced ahead to grumble about people who never remember to bring a debit card and force others to suffer while they write checks with the calligraphic handwriting meant for signing the Declaration of Independence.

  Once we reached the front, of course, we were the only ones in line, with no one behind us. Go figure.

  The clerk at the register wasn’t hard to miss. With her round belly and snapping gum, she looked like a college student who’d accidentally gotten knocked up. But she smelled different somehow—I detected an aroma that made me think of the forest. One that invited me to run free. The sweet scent of magic. Aggie tilted her head and leaned forward. I stomped on her foot. This wasn’t the time to be rude and smell someone else’s butt to figure out what breed they were.

  I had a feeling we’d just encountered a nymph. This ancient Greek protector of nature had pale skin that glistened, like morning dew dripped from her arms. I didn’t detect any glamour on her, but she smelled ethereal.

  And right then, my brother Alex picked exactly the wrong time to make a purchase.

  “Hey, Nat.” He casually tossed a box of condoms on
the conveyor belt.

  The nymph, whose name tag read Karey, peered at him with emerald-green eyes. “About time you showed up.”

  A den of snakes could have popped out of her head as she glared at him.

  His smile faded as he saw her belly from around the corner. Their eyes went back and forth and my first thought was, Alex, you’ve been a naughty boy.

  She somehow completed my transaction without looking away from Alex for a second. One hand scanned my items and flew on the register while the other gestured at my brother.

  “You think you can just have a week or two with me and then ignore my phone calls?”

  Alex’s hands went up in surrender. “Look, Karey, it’s not what you think.”

  I wanted to whisper to Karey that it actually was what she thought, but Alex was in enough trouble at the moment.

  She was even able to carry on an argument and box groceries at the same time. “I’ve been searching for you for weeks. You never come to this store anymore, and your parents tell me they haven’t seen you.”

  I glanced at the conveyor belt. Somehow two candy bars had replaced the box of condoms. My brother wasn’t that dumb.

  “My parents said nothing about you being pregnant. I mean, are you sure I’m the father?”

  My transaction was done, but for some reason I stood there and watched the train wreck in progress. Aggie chuckled from beside me. Should I save my brother by taping his mouth shut?

  “Maybe this is all because I’m not the nice werewolf girl your parents expected to show up at the doorstep. I want your cell phone number right now.” She placed her hands on her hips. “You’re not skirting your duties as a father here, pal.”

  “If that’s my baby, I plan to do the right thing.”

  I could almost see my mother now. This would make the best Sunday dinner—ever. Even if my family wasn’t willing to tolerate my presence, I’d still pay money to see how this situation went down.

  My brother bought the two candy bars and scribbled his cell phone number (the real one) on the receipt. With a serious face, he followed Aggie and me into the parking lot.