by Josey Alden
"Is it all right if I touch you?" Rosa said, the wonder in her voice surprising her.
Raub moved closer to her and rubbed her knees. She reached out and ran her hand over the fur of his neck. She could feel the rock-hard muscles underneath, ready to propel him forward at the slightest cue. For a few seconds, she thought about what it would be like to have him on top of her, pinning her to the ground and tearing out her throat with those pearlescent teeth. She snatched her hand back and shuddered. Raub whined and looked into her eyes.
"I'm sorry," Rosa said. "I spooked myself. But I blame you for putting these ideas in my head."
Raub turned a half-circle and curled up on the floor next to the couch, settling his snout on his front paws.
"Yeah, I'm tired, too," Rosa said, standing up from the couch. "Good night."
It seemed rude to leave her guest on the floor in the living room, but he looked perfectly comfortable. She left her bedroom door cracked just a bit. Closing the door completely seemed rude since he couldn't open it in wolf form. She quickly changed into a t-shirt and yoga pants and took off her makeup. Hopefully, she could wake up earlier than Raub and put it back on before he saw her in her natural state.
Sleep came quickly, and Rosa tumbled down into a dream. She was running along a river bank, frantic, looking for something. All she could see was clear water racing by. She ran faster than she ever had, but she still could not find what she was looking for. She stopped abruptly and looked down at her body.
She was a wolf. Before she could process this unexpected transformation, she heard a deafening roar behind her. Knowing it was too late, she spun around and tried to defend herself against a giant tiger. She screamed as his jaws closed around her neck.
When Rosa woke up, she found Raub nudging her arm with his muzzle and whining, trying to wake her up. She didn't want to go back to sleep and fall into the same nightmare again.
"Will you stay here with me?" she said.
Raub jumped onto the bed and settled on the mattress next to her. Rosa turned to face his back, wrapped her arm around him, and buried her fingers in the thick fur of his chest. Now, she felt safe.
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Chapter 11
Jared thought about Rosa Mendez for a few minutes each morning when he woke up. He wished that he could photograph her, capture some of her spirit. They'd spoken only for minutes, but he could tell she'd admired his photography for a long time. Somehow, this made him feel like they weren't total strangers. They'd been having half a conversation for years. And he could tell the difference between people who said they liked his work as they barely glanced at the wall, and those who spent hours gazing into the world as he sees it.
Physically, he wanted her more every day. He had avoided bringing any women home since the day Jennifer rejected him. But he didn't realize how much he depended on having sex every night to relax, even though he often had to face a pissed-off woman the next morning. Today, his morning wood felt like petrified oak. If he didn't have some relief, he felt sure he would explode.
With the image of Rosa's body imprinted on his mind, he reached down and took hold of himself. If she were in his bed, he would first smooth her hair back from her face, letting it fall down her back. He would pull the peasant blouse she wore at the studio over her head, revealing her heavy breasts, held by nothing but lace. He would trace his fingers along her neck and down the front of her shoulder.
Jared knew he wasn't going to outlast this fantasy. His cock was like iron straight from the fire pit. His breathing was hard and fast in time with his strokes. Unable to lie still any longer, he stood up next to the bed and pumped himself harder. It felt so damn good, it made him want to shift. Badly. But it's kind of hard to masturbate in wolf form. He suppressed the call of his wolf and focused on his very human cock, which was going to burst at any second. With a few more violent thrusts into his hand, Jared felt the magma of release rise from his core. He shouted when he could no longer hold it in. When he came, thick ropes of white liquid splattered across his bed. His body jerked through the intense orgasm, and then he collapsed on the bed, lying flat on his back. He could feel the stickiness underneath him. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Not at this breathtaking moment.
But it would have been twice as hot if Rosa were in his bed.
Not bothering to clean up, Jared stood up and opened the front door a little. Still inside the den, he shifted, taking the form he preferred. If he were simply a wolf, life would be much more straightforward. He would grow up in a close-knit pack, learn from the alphas and betas he looked up to. In time, he would earn the privileges of being a beta by keeping his pack safe from competing animals. Eventually, as their alpha grew older, he would show everyone that he was ready to be alpha. He would protect every member of the pack and make sure everyone had food and shelter. Then, as the alpha, we would take a mate and bring new pups into the family.
If he were a wolf all of the time, he wouldn't have to worry about a career, politics, laws. Proving himself as an alpha wouldn't require so much time and complicated machinations in the pack. If he were the strongest, most attentive male, he would become the alpha. From then, he would defend his position as the other males in his pack grew older, knowing that most would leave to form their own packs, anyway.
He caught himself dwelling on these thoughts and shook them out of his head. It was never a good idea to overthink things in wolf form. It was a form of ultimate freedom from all the trappings of human society. Why spoil it with emotional human baggage?
With one paw, Jared pulled the front door open the rest of the way. He turned and grabbed the rope fastened to the door handle, giving it a quick tug to close the door behind him.
He loped down the country road, excitement building in his legs as he turned south to cut through the woods to the river. Running was second only to sex for him. With the powerful muscles of his wolf, he could run for miles, thinking of nothing but the ground beneath his paws and the trees over his head, illuminated by nothing but the sun. Pure. Alone.
Free.
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Chapter 12
At the end of the second week of school, Rosa stood in front of her class. They were all too young to shift—their awakening wouldn't happen until their teenage years—but she respected the wolf in each of them. When she was a student teacher, she was proud of her kids, of course, but her own class had that extra bit of wisdom that delighted her.
"This morning, we're going to do something a little different," she said. She turned to the chalkboard, briefly wishing the school could afford dry-erase boards, and grabbed a piece of yellow chalk. She wrote, "This is what being a wolf means to me."
Tiger immediately put his hand up. Tiger always had something to say.
"Yes?" Rosa said.
"What if we don't got our wolves yet?"
"Have," Rosa said. "You don't have your wolves yet."
The class laughed at her correction, but Tiger wasn't fazed. He waited for her answer.
"That's a good question, Tiger, but I don't see it that way. I think everyone in this room already has his or her wolf."
"Except you?"
Rosa nodded. "Except me."
Usually, the kids made her feel like the alpha female of her own little pack, but Tiger's comment stung a little. He wasn't trying to be rude; he just had a literal mind. And she was the one who had opened up the topic.
"For fifteen minutes, I want you to think about this idea." She pointed to the sentence she wrote. "Then, we'll all share."
"Miss Rosa?" A little voice interrupted her thoughts.
"What, sweetie?"
"I think Carsen found his wolf."
Rosa looked around the classroom until she discovered Carsen on all fours on the floor, chasing his imaginary tail in circles.
"Yes, I think you're right," she said, laughing.
At the end of the fifteen minutes, Rosa stood at the front of the classroom again, chalk in hand. "Okay, I'm going to write
down your ideas as you call them out. Please, please be respectful of each other and don't interrupt. Tiger, you're first. What does being a wolf mean to you?"
"Lots of aunts and uncles." Rosa smiled and wrote his response on the board.
"Next?"
"When you shift, you don't have to wear clothes."
Rosa wrote each answer as the kids said them. When all of the kids' answers were listed on the board, she set the chalk in the tray at the bottom of the chalkboard. One of the responses drew her eyes back several times.
"My wolf is my soul."
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Chapter 13
Jared was at the studio in his usual place behind the counter, with his enormous computer screen in front of him, trying to lose himself in his images. Lately, he'd been drawn to taking photographs of she-wolves. He'd never had much interest in female wolves. He didn't dislike them, but he wasn't attracted to them, either.
The wolf on his screen was called Cricket, a nickname she earned by jumping around all the time, especially when others around her wanted to rest. Her wolf was built like a human gymnast: small, compact, and full of raw power. She was in her mid-twenties like Jared, but she still seemed far away from settling down with a pack of her own. Jared, on the other hand, was having trouble thinking of anything except forming a pack. And those thoughts kept leading him right back to Rosa Mendez.
Jared sighed and dropped his head to his palms. He couldn't take a pure-blood human as a mate. If he were to pursue Rosa, she would only be another distraction, another warm body in his bed. They had no possible future together. But his body refused to listen. He wanted her more than he could admit to anyone. He was up to two ten-mile runs every day, trying to pacify his wolf and keep his mind off Rosa's luscious curves. Why did she have to come to the Alpha Lands? Weren't there enough jobs among the pure-bloods?
He smacked the desktop with his hand. Damn, he had to see her again. But not alone. If he could just spend some time with her in a neutral place, he was sure the obsessive thoughts would weaken. He was putting her on an impossible pedestal. When he saw the reality of the situation, he could move on. After all, she was merely human.
He looked up the phone number for Solano Elementary and called. When the receptionist answered the phone, he asked for one of the counselors, Sarah Rivers.
"Jared, hi, how are you?" Sarah said when she came on the line.
"Great." He pictured her as they talked: medium height, curly blonde hair, green eyes. She would make a perfect mate, if she wasn't already the female alpha of her own pack. "Hey, I'd like to come do another photography field trip with the kids."
"They would love that. They talked about it for weeks after you came last time."
They settled on a date—a week from Tuesday—and Jared promised to call the day before to confirm.
He stared at his phone for a minute after they ended the call. Doing this under false pretenses felt a little shady. True, he loved sharing photography with the kids. Last year, he'd donated forty cameras and a few souped-up laptops to the school to encourage the kids to take and digitally develop their own photographs. A small group of students had even organized their own photography club. So, why did he feel like such a cad now?
Jared went back to his computer screen, searching Cricket's eyes and wishing he could find in her soul what he saw in Rosa's in the brief moments they'd shared.
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Chapter 14
In the teachers lounge, Rosa overheard a counselor talking to a teacher about some kind of photography program for the kids. Her head snapped up when Jared's name came out of the counselor's mouth. She tried to cover her surprise with a cough, and she took off before the women noticed her eavesdropping.
The way her heart had stumbled over a few beats at the mention of Jared's name felt like a warning sign. Things were going well with Raub. They'd had dinner again, and he'd taken her on a long walk along the river. It was low-key and comfortable. But she never thought she'd use those words to describe a relationship with a werewolf.
When she thought about Jared standing in front of her at the studio, her body reacted immediately. She felt warm from her forehead to her toes. Tiny fireworks went off in her chest and belly. She closed her eyes and indulged herself for a minute, imagining what it would be like in his arms.
"Miss Rosa, Tommy stole my red crayon."
Gina's voice brought her back to reality with a thud.
"Tommy, did you take something of Gina's?"
"Yeah." The little offender tossed the crayon at her.
Five minutes later, Gina marched up to her desk again. "Miss Rosa, Tommy took my blue crayon."
Then, she realized that Tommy was interested in something besides crayons. She smiled at Tina and said, "I think you can work it out with him."
She turned to her computer screen, pulled up a new email, and typed, "Mrs. Rivers, I would like to volunteer as a chaperone for the photography outing."
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Chapter 15
Raub Forrest knew what he wanted, and he knew he deserved it. Standing at his classroom window, he could see Rosa Mendez loading her bag into the backseat of her Land Rover. She didn't realize how vulnerable she was, leaning into the car that way. It would take two seconds to shove her into the car and take off. And that was considering only the human aspect.
A wolf attacker was another story altogether.
He watched Rosa finally climb into the drivers seat and start the car without incident. He then turned away from the window, his job done, for now.
After straightening his classroom for half an hour, Raub hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and left the school. His car was one of the last in the parking lot. He saw Sarah Rivers' silver Toyota and Principal Townsend's yellow Nissan SUV. Normally, he would wait them out. Tonight, though, he had more important things to do.
He approached and then passed Rosa's den complex, turning into the parking lot of the building two blocks down. After securing his car, he walked back to Rosa's building. While it was still light outside, he needed to hide well. The woods behind Rosa's den provided ample cover. She had a dangerous habit of leaving her blinds open all the time. He'd told her several times to keep them closed. He'd warned her about the first-floor den. A woman could not be safe under these conditions.
Raub shifted and settled in for his nightly vigil. His coloring was perfect camouflage in the woods. Not that she ever looked too closely. He could be sitting five feet from her back window, and he doubted she'd see him.
The sound of knocking broke into his thoughts. He instantly rose to his feet. Was that Rosa's door? He listened with sensitive ears until he heard Rosa's voice: "Hi, Jared. Come in."
Raub sighed. Another male. How could he be expected to protect her if she was always inviting trouble into her home?
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Chapter 16
After she answered the door, Rosa stepped back in surprise.
"Hi, Jared. Come in."
Rosa was horrified by the clothes strewn across the furniture. Bras, panties, night shirts. She'd done laundry the night before, and the one open dryer was broken. She was spoiled by the washer and dryer in the apartment she shared with Cyn. As Jared politely looked away, she turbo-cleaned the living room.
"Okay, that should cut my embarrassment level in half," she said. "Would you like something to drink?"
"No, thank you," Jared said.
He had an odd look on his face, like he had no idea what to say now that he was here.
"Would you like to sit?" Rosa said.
He nodded and sat at the opposite end of the couch from her. His posture was laid back, but he fidgeted, and it seemed obvious that he didn't know why he'd come to see her. Several minutes passed without a word between them, but somehow, Rosa felt they were communicating.
Then, "I'm coming to the school tomorrow for a photography field trip."
"Yes, I know," Rosa said.
"I hope you can be there."
R
osa smiled. He was asking her out. Sort of. He was asking her to be in the same place as him at the same time. That was something. "Yes, I'll be there."
Together, they watched the sun set through her living room window. For a moment, she saw his face darken, and he peered into the glass. With the falling darkness, though, all they could really see was their own reflections.
Jared abruptly stood up and walked to the door. "Tomorrow, then," he said.
"Tomorrow."
Rosa locked the door behind Jared and closed the living room blinds before curling up in bed with Jared's book and daydreaming about his wolf.
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Chapter 17
Thirty-six kids earned the privilege of going on Jared's photography field trip. The weather was beginning to cool into October, and everyone was aching to be out in the woods. Cooping up wolf kids all day for weeks on end was not natural. Jared always thought the Anya tribe went a little overboard in emulating human education. They had so much more to teach their students.
He hadn't seen Rosa yet. He kept an eye on the door as he distributed cameras to the kids from the back of his truck. Each time it opened, he felt a tiny thrill in his chest. Each time, he was disappointed.
When he had only two cameras left, Jared resigned himself to the fact that she was not joining them. He signaled to the teachers that they were ready to go.
As a group, the adults and children headed south toward the Southwoods trailhead. Adult wolves generally didn't follow human trails, but they used them to train the young kids. When they were only a few steps away from the trail, Jared heard someone call out, "Wait for us." He froze in place, immediately recognizing Rosa's voice. He turned to see her leading two kids by the hand toward them. He walked back to his truck and pulled out the two extra cameras as they reached him.