by L. A. Boruff
Yes. Today, St. Patrick’s Day, was the perfect day.
After throwing my emerald cloak over my shoulders, I fastened the few buttons, picked up my basket, and walked out my door. The sun neared noon, so I didn’t worry overly much about breaking my promise to father. By the time I would enter the woods, it would be much later. Excitement danced along my spine. My soul sung songs of pure bliss.
My garden looked forlorn, a mixture of brown and small piles of white snow. None of the green and bright colors seen later in spring. But here and there, crocuses, snow drops, irises, and hyacinths poked through, displaying their pretty colors.
A small patch of green at the far end caught my eye. My feet flew over the ground. A cry of delight left my lips as I sank to my knees. My fingers carefully brushed the snow away from an early patch of clover, or shamrocks as my stepmother called them. They were my soul plant, stamped on my very skin.
I cradled the delicate leaves in my fingers. A smile broke across my face at the good omen, to find shamrocks on a day celebrating them. If clover already grew, so would other edible plants. With my mouth watering and my stomach rumbling in anticipation of the addition to my evening meal, I stood and traipsed into the woods. Never once did I look at the sky.
Near silence greeted me while filtered sunlight made everything sparkle and shine. Yet as I stood just inside the cusp, the forest seemingly came to life. Despite the dampness from the melting snow, small crinkles and rustling of tiny animals scampering through the woods sounded in my ears. If the animals were out and about, then food could be found.
I meandered through the woods, following the trail that led toward the pond and small waterfall. My eyes darted from sight to sight. The wonder and majesty of rebirth each year never growing old.
A patch of green off the path caught my eye. Without a care in the world, I stepped over a fallen tree into a small clearing filled with shoots of chickweed. Yum. I bent over, harvesting enough for a few days, ensuring I left enough for future trips.
The crash of water hitting the pond filled the air and I knew it was close by. Making a snap decision, I decided to forgo the path in favor of wandering the woods. I could never become lost if I headed toward the sound of water.
My basket filled with goodies: dandelion shoots, field garlic, plantain, and even some stinging nettles for tea. Pleased with my find, I stepped into the clearing containing my pond.
Steam rose from the water invitingly. Just the thought of a quick dip into the heated water warmed my chilled skin.
The ground beside a large rock became a convenient place to store my basket while the rock would serve to hold my clothes. I stripped, leaving me in nothing but my thin cotton chemise. Goosebumps rose from the wind, but the warm water would soon heat my skin. I didn’t worry about someone stumbling across me in my state of undress. These woods were safe.
I dipped my toe in. A shiver of pleasure ran up my spine. Not waiting any longer, I slipped into the water until only my head remained above.
The water lifted my feet from the rocky bottom until I floated on my back. My thin chemise, see-through from the water, molded to my skin, revealing the dusky peaks of my erect nipples. The sun beamed down, and the sight sent a small slice of fear through me. It had yet to reach the pinnacle of its trek. I’d broken my father’s rule and entered the woods before noon. But since nothing had happened, I allowed the water to soothe and relax my tense muscles.
My hair floated around me in a golden halo as the soft currents kept my body moving. The warm water lapped over me, enticing me when it hit the naked junction between my legs. No hand other than my own had ever touched me there. The feel of the water was so different yet still arousing. My legs spread open until I resembled a starfish, allowing more water to pulse against me. With careful movements born from practice, I lifted a hand out of the water until I could run it over my breasts, playing with my taut nipples.
Soft whispering of the air rushing through young leaves on the trees was the musical background as my breath sped up. I plucked at my nipples, pinching and rolling them between my thumb and fingers. Heat seared my vessels as my need grew greater. My core clenched at nothing but water. It needed something more. From my books, I knew it needed fingers or a meaty cock—something that men had but sounded bigger than fingers. I’d used my own in the past, but it never seemed to produce the orgasms spoken about in books. So, whatever a cock was, it must have magical powers.
The need grew desperate. I no longer floated in calm water, my movements too frantic, which stirred up waves. The increased pulsing helped somewhat, but it still wasn’t enough.
Bending my legs, I allowed my feet to drift toward the bottom. My hand slid over the wet chemise as if it wasn’t even there. Thankfully my chemise stopped just below my butt which meant I didn’t have to lift it much to bare my hidden pleasures. Without stopping, my fingers slipped between my wet curls until they found the little hard nub. My clit throbbed under the pressure, eliciting spasms inside me. I felt so empty with nothing to grip.
I conjured the hero from my latest book. His dark eyes stared into mine with lust. The corners of his mouth lifted into a sensual smile as it drew closer to mine. The tip of my tongue traced the edges of my lips, wetting them with anticipation. How I yearned to feel his lips on mine, on my skin, on my nipples. A low moan left my mouth and wings of birds nearby fluttered in the air. But I was too far gone to spend time thinking about the birds.
In my mind, the hero’s low voice caressed along the skin on my neck, bringing shivers. His fingers were the ones playing with my nipples, pulling on them. The warm water surrounding them was his mouth.
My hand slid a little farther down to find my entrance. I didn’t hesitate to slide it inside that warm spot. My eyes rolled back. What I wouldn’t give to feel the real thing. Instead of my own, I imagined the finger was bigger, rougher, and calloused. It drove inside me, impaling me, filling me like I’d never felt before.
A second voice joined the first. The owner’s warm body cradled me from behind. His large hands covered my breasts, dislodging the one remaining hand there.
Free to roam, the hand traced a path down my abdomen. Each muscle flexed and tensed as it ran over them while his other hand continued to pump inside me.
I climbed higher and higher. My daydream, my fantasy completely blocked out the real world. Something it had never done before.
The throbbing intensified. My thumb pressed hard on my clit as my fingers pinched my nipple. I bit my lip to stifle my scream as I broke through the crest and fell over the cliff. My body tensed. Each muscle spasmed, but instead of pain, all I felt was exquisite pleasure.
My hands fell to my sides while my feet settled on the bottom. Without the water holding me, I doubted I would have been able to remain standing. Each muscle felt like mush, and I struggled to catch my breath. Never before had I fantasized about two men, but if that was the result, it would be my new daydream from now on.
Slowly I made my way back on shore. I spread my cloak on the ground in a patch of sun and lay on it, drawing the sides over me to keep me warm as I dried. A towel would have come in handy and usually I kept some hidden between a couple of rocks, but it was too early in the season for me to have placed them there.
The sun warmed my body through the wool of my cloak. Between it and the exhaustion from my massive orgasm, my eyes drifted shut. I covered a yawn with my hand. A little nap would do wonders.
A loud rustle accompanied by a deep growl had me sitting up in fright. It sounded like a wolf, but I’d never encountered one in my woods before.
My eyes darted around looking for the source of the noise. The underbrush moved off to my left. Crouching, I readied myself to meet whatever it was.
The bushes parted. A large, scraggly looking wolf with gray-black fur covered in mud splatters emerged. His eyes glowed an eerie yellow. He stalked toward me. My heart jumped and lodged in my throat.
Lifting my cloak, I wrapped it around my arm a
nd prayed. Hopefully it would be enough to not only protect my arm but also my neck if I held my arm in front of it.
The wolf stopped and sat on his haunches. Its eyes never left mine, watching me unflinchingly. It almost appeared as if it let me attempt to protect myself knowing the futility of it.
As soon as I lifted my arm, it pounced, flying through the air directly for my neck. With a shriek, I stumbled and fell backwards. Its jaws clamped around my arm, and its body weight pushed me back further. My head smacked on something hard. Bright lights exploded behind my eyes. Excruciating pain tore through me. The light dimmed and faded until blackness surrounded me.
2
Breandan
I raced through the woods. My paws barely touching the ground. The rogue shifter had passed through this spot not too long ago. My nose twitched at his scent. If there was one thing I took seriously, it was my vow to protect the villagers from dangerous rogues. Not that they were all that thrilled with the idea of our pack living on the far side of the woods, but the treaty between us and the villagers had been agreed upon hundreds of years ago. Most likely, there wasn’t a villager alive who knew of our true existence. They only knew about the treaty.
My nose twitched again, but this time it was the absence of the scent that triggered it. Shit. I’d somehow raced too quickly to notice where he’d veered off.
Iasan, I called through my mental link with my best friend. I lost the trail. His chuckle sounded in my ears.
I know. You were too busy racing to notice when he turned. It looks like he’s headed toward the hot spring.
Yes, I screwed up. I could hear the censure in his voice. But who could blame me? The sun beat down on us. A warm day considering it was St. Patrick’s Day. Normally we didn’t receive weather like this until late April. It made me want to stretch out muscles and lose some of my winter fur.
Turning around, I raced back to where Iasan waited. My eyes darted to the sky. The sun had yet to reach noon, but it still didn’t give us much time to track down the rogue and take care of him. According to the treaty, the woods were ours to roam in from nightfall until noon. At that point, the villagers could hunt any wild animals, including wolves, that roamed within the trees. Although the majority of the villagers avoided these woods in its entirety, preferring to hunt in the forest on the other side of their village. Any even those few who occasionally wandered within these trees, they never traveled deeper than the hot spring.
To have a rogue make it there could spell disaster for both us and the humans. We needed to hurry. Iasan, go on after him. I’ll catch up. The rogue had been testing our borders for days, but managed to avoid capture. This was the first time he’d managed to get past them and once we’d taken care of him, I’d have a few words with the wolves on guard duty. This never should have happened. In fact, if Iasan and I hadn’t been out on a run by ourselves, we would have never known he’d made it past. It had been pure chance we’d crossed his scent.
I picked up the pace, taking a short cut through the woods instead of following the path I’d previously run. Now that I knew the approximate destination, I could cut him off.
A human scream tore through the air. Shit. Shit. Shit. The sun wasn’t fully up so the human should not have been there. Even still, the scream clenched around my heart, and my front paw stumbled before righting itself. Adrenaline coursed through me as the scream sounded again only to be abruptly cut off. The trees whizzed by me at a speed faster than ever before. I needed to get there. I needed to save whomever screamed. It was no longer about the treaty. Something about the scream triggered my protective instincts. I wanted to tear the rogue from limb to limb, but slowly, to ensure he felt every moment of my wrath.
I pushed through the last bit of underbrush and tore into the clearing in time to see Iasan’s jaw clamp around the rogue’s neck. Iasan flicked his head and sent the rogue flying through the air. A human cloak clamped in his jaws trailed after him. Breandan, grab him. I’m going to help the human he attacked.
As much as I wanted to join Iasan, I knew I needed to destroy the threat first.
The rogue landed, but tangled his paws in the cloak, giving me the advantage. My muscles tensed before launching me through the air. I aimed for the back of his neck. My jaw opened wide, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth while my front paws extended, claws out, ready to slash through his skin.
I landed on his back. My claws raked his sides as my teeth sunk into the back of his neck. With a powerful chomp, I closed my jaw. A large crack sounded, and he went limp under me from a broken neck. My paws hit the ground. I loosened my hold, rolling him onto his back. I wasn’t about to take any chances that he was playacting. Pinning him down, I grabbed his throat with my teeth and yanked. Blood and fur flew everywhere. There was no way he could survive with that type of damage.
Spitting out the piece still in my mouth, I rushed back to Iasan who’d changed back into human form.
“She’s unconscious. There’s a lot of blood, but I can’t find any bites, only a few shallow scratches on her arm.”
I smoothly transitioned back into my human form and knelt beside him. “Where’s the blood coming from?”
His hands roamed over her body. A body her light chemise did nothing to hide. I felt my cock begging to harden as I watched his hands skim over her smooth, pale skin.
“I found it. She must have hit her head on something.” He lifted his head and scanned the clearing, sniffing while I did the same. The scent of her blood pulled on some chord deep within me. It was all I could do to keep from snatching her up into my arms, but if anyone could help her it was Iasan. He was our healer.
“There.” He pointed to a rock not too far from where she lay on the grass. A pile of clothes rested on top.
“How did she avoid being bit?”
Iasan looked up, meeting my gaze. A look of concern and wonderment filled his green eyes. “She’d wrapped the cloak around her arm. His teeth sunk in, but couldn’t pull back out. She was extremely lucky.” Admiration and pride filled his voice.
My brows drew tight. I’d never heard Iasan speak about a woman in that tone before and it worried me. Was he feeling the same draw, the feeling of protectiveness that I felt?
The woman shivered. Her face scrunched in pain. “We need to take her back with us.” Iasan stared directly at me, informing me that he didn’t care what my answer was, he was going to do it whether I liked it or not. But the idea of leaving her here or even taking her to the village—not that we had clothes to put on—made me anxious.
“Yes. I agree. We need to take care of her until she’s healed.”
His fingers tore the bottom of her chemise, exposing the lower half of her body to our gaze. I sucked in a breath at the blond curls covering her. The scent of arousal filled the air when her body shivered once again. My cock stood straight out from me as hard as I’d ever been. A quick glance at Iasan revealed he suffered the same.
“Grab her clothes and see if the cloak is salvageable. She’s freezing.”
My eyebrows rose at the bark in his voice. As the alpha and prince to all the shifters, I wasn’t used to being told what to do, but I recognized the need and urgency that necessitated the tone. Without uttering a word, I rose to do his bidding.
Her clothes were homespun and serviceable, but upon shaking them out, I noticed tiny flowers and shamrocks embroidered over the material. “Here.” I carefully laid them down beside him before moving on to the cloak. The green color shone brightly in the sunlight. When I first saw it, my wolf’s eyes registered it as a gray tone. Color was the one thing I missed while in wolf form.
I carefully pried the cloak off the wolf’s teeth, amazed at how the weave of the wool allowed the teeth to slip in, but refused to let them leave. Once the teeth were released, I held the cloak up to examine it. You could not see where the wolf bit through it, but there were a few splatters of blood. I made a promise to myself to clean it once we had her safely ensconced in our house.
&
nbsp; Returning to Iasan’s side, I discovered he’d pulled her skirt up over her legs and waist covering them. The erection which had started to flag returned in full force at the thought of her damp curls and the secrets they hid. I handed him the cloak as I dropped to my knees at her side.
Until this moment I’d resisted touching her, but could no longer hold back. My fingers itched to feel her delicate skin under them. Her golden hair peeked out from under the bandage Iasan wrapped around her head. Relief flooded my system when I noticed only a small patch of dull red on it. I reached out, and my fingers curled around one of the locks. It felt like silk against my roughened skin.
Her breathing remained steady if a little shallow. I could see her pulse under the skin on her neck. To reassure myself, I released her hair and trailed the tips of my fingers across her cheek and down her neck to settle on that little vibration. Each pulse calmed the rage that continued to run through my veins at her injury. She was fine. Her pulse strong and steady.
“You’re the faster runner, Breandan. You’re going to need to run home and grab us clothes while I carry her.”
I glanced at the sky noting the position of the sun. Noon had come and gone which meant the woods were not safe for wolves. But what else could we do? Humans would be just as weary of us if they discovered us walking naked through the woods while carrying an unconscious, partially-clothed female. And considering her beauty, they would easily jump to the wrong conclusions. Taking the time to deal with an irate human male or a group of them would be of no help to the beauty lying before me.
Leaning over her, I blew gently over her face, covering her with my scent. Not that she needed the added protection, considering Iasan garnered nearly as much respect and fear as me, but it never hurt to be doubly cautious. “Keep safe,” I whispered, drawing my finger down the side of her face, learning the curve of her cheekbone. Even blind, I would be able to pick out her face from a crowd by touch alone.