Hot Springs Werewolf Complete Series (BBW Werewolf Erotic Romance) (29 page)

"Red, you need to shift back."

He looked at me and gave a low growl before baring his teeth. There was no sign he understood me or knew who I was.

Feeling my hands tremble, I quickly undressed in case I had to shift and saw him look my naked body up and down. His cock between his legs was long and thick and at the sight of me began to swell. The night he'd come into my room and I'd been on the bed with my ass up in the air - Red had slipped in this direction, toward wildness.

He growled again and took a step towards me.

I shifted, so I could run but also so I could talk to him and nearly collapsed.

A screaming whirlwind. Red's voice overlaid with the howl of a wolf, the roar of a wild animal on the attack, the keening of a creature in intense pain.

:Red!

He snarled as I approached. It was like walking into a hurricane, the force of his anger and sadness pounding down on me.

:Red. I need you.

It was hard to communicate like this. Up to my neck in the ocean and trying to sprint. Yelling into the wind, the words snatched away.

I came closer and then without warning, he slashed at me, the tip of a claw scraping across my shoulder, leaving a line of fire.

:Red, please.

The beast snarled and advanced on me, razor sharp claws ready to strike.

I just needed to get him somewhere safe, somewhere he could be contained...

The Finch mansion. The underground vault. Between one backward step and the next it flashed into my mind and I suddenly understood why they had it built in the first place.

I turned my back on him and ran.

An instant later I felt the tug of him shifting to wolf and he followed.

Out the hole in the fence, up an embankment, my claws scrabbling in the thick grass, across a road, narrowly missing a car. I bolted through backyards and crashed through flowerbeds and bushes. Red was right behind me and although he was faster than I, he seemed less able to follow. I leapt on to the roof of a kennel and then over a fence and gained a lead on him as he paused on the other side. There was something missing in this wild state. The human part of him was gone and with it, the knowledge of human things. Like I'd been at Red's, shifting back from wolf, intent on ripping Edward Toulouse's head off but unable to work out the doorknob to get inside.

If we got on to a straight stretch then he'd catch me. But if I went through yards and around playsets, I had a chance.

I heard Red land behind me, thudding to the ground and snarling and I didn't look back.

As I ran I could feel the Finch mansion getting closer. I had to get a proper lead on Red before we left the suburbs or he'd catch me in open area. But despite the adrenaline roaring through me, the power of the werewolf pushing me, I was tired and slowing down. I'd run more than a hundred miles this morning and now I was running again, with half a bowl of beans and a hastily eaten hamburger and lemonade to fill me up.

I leapt over a fence, five feet high and felt the tip of my tail brush against it. Nearly there. Nearly at the last hou-

Suddenly I was skidding across concrete and I had the breath knocked out of me as I was hit from the side. It was Red. Somehow he'd caught up in the stretch between the fence and the front yard. We crashed into the side of the house and then all I could see was teeth and fur and dirt. We snapped and bit at each other and I managed to get away from him, just a few steps before he launched himself at me, his mouth open, teeth sharp and ready to kill.

I shifted to human, just for a moment and fell backwards as Red flew towards me. I rolled and somehow grabbed him, flinging him past me. By the time he hit the side fence I was a wolf again and bolting, through the front yard, over the fence and towards the Finch mansion that stood in the distance.

The roaring whirlwind of pain from Red stopped for a moment and I was afraid I'd killed him but then it came back, just as strong as before. He'd hit the fence hard but now he was on his feet and chasing me once more.

*

W
e had a teacher at school who made us run. We didn't play sports or games. Every physical education class, we ran. As children we didn't know he was getting divorced because his wife had cheated on him. We didn't know he was drinking and angry and hated the world. All we knew was he made us run, over and again and somehow parents didn't find out for months.

He made us run until our legs burned and fire rose up in our throats and kids fell over, nearly unconscious, gasping like fish heaved up on to land.

Up until now, it had been the worst physical pain I'd been in.

Now my legs were in agony and the fire in my lungs had long burnt out and now was just smoldering ashes, radiating pain. I was chanting over and over in my head.

:Please Red, please Red, please.

It didn't stop him gaining on me. It didn't stop the raging anger or bring the human part of him back.

Twice he almost caught me but I'd evaded him somehow. He was crashing into trees, running straight through spiked bushes and his coat was streaked with blood from a hundred wounds.

I couldn't think but I knew that this was it. If I couldn't get Red into the vault and lock it then we'd fight. One of us would die.

Across the dirt, across the gravel and then through the mansion front door, crashing it aside. It swung back, hitting Red and slowing him. I bolted left and leapt through the hole in the floor, feeling my claws scrabbling on the ground. I landed hard and somehow rolled. I ran through the dark, Red close behind me, the smell of Donald Crisp's dried blood saturating the room.

Books and rotten shelves and a great heavy door left just wide enough for me to slip through.

I turned around, expecting Red to come flying through the gap after me, some vague plan of turning human and flipping him into the wall before running out forming in my mind. But he stopped at the door, snarling, and I saw the gap was too narrow for him. He couldn't follow me in.

Then I felt the tug that turned to pain and saw the wolf shift into the beast. Paws turned into hands with sharpened talons. His body layered over in muscle and the roaring in my mind intensified. The shift complete, the beast reached forward with his hand and pulled the giant vault door open like it weighed nothing. It swung back and smashed against the wall and I saw the top hinge shear off. The weight of the door pulled down, the bottom hinge buckling and then with a tremendous thud, the entire thing fell to the ground, shaking the entire house.

The beast had ripped the door off.

I had no way to lock him up.

He snarled and walked towards me.

*

:R
ed please! Red! Red!

The vault was large but there was nothing in it. No furniture to hide behind. Just dirt and a dried pool of blood in the center. I kept backing away but there was no escape and I knew if I tried to run around the beast I'd feel talons stab into me.

The beast. Red. My love, gone and replaced with this wild creature of pure anger.

Of pure pain.

I hit the back wall, my body screaming a thousand complaints of wounds and soreness and lungs hurting but they were nothing compared to the pain inside of me. I loved Red and I'd left and the vision of the future I'd tried to stop myself thinking about was crashing down upon me.

The beast stepped closer to me and before I could bolt, before I could leap and take my chances, I shifted, turning human.

"Red..."

Gasping still, mouth dry and the swirling wrongness of being human. I put my head down, hands on my thighs, unable to even look up as the beast came towards me.

Change back, change back, change back!

"A..."

A voice, deep and bestial, barely forming words.

"B..."

All I could see were feet with sharp talons, legs with blood running down them, droplets splashing on the dirty floor. The beast had stopped. Close enough for me to smell it. Close enough to reach out and grab me if it wanted. I could change now, run past, run, get away...

"C..."

The hurricane in my mind was fading away as the beast tried to speak. I took a breath, finally, filling my lungs and stood up to face it. It towered above me, eyes glowing gold, its mouth twitching as though it wasn't sure if it should bite or speak.

"D," I said.

I saw the beast frown and its face contort in a grimace.

:Harper

So faint, a whisper from down a deep hole, a nothing on the wind. Red's voice in my mind.

"E, F, G, H..."

I carried on through the alphabet and as I did, the beast began to change.

Talons became fingernails. Sharpened fangs became teeth. A bestial snout became a nose and the face of the man I loved appeared.

The beast vanished and Red stood in his place.

"Harper?"

I reached for him as he held out his hand for me but then he toppled backwards, landing unconscious on the floor and then I was sobbing over him, my tears washing the blood off his face, babbling like a mad woman.

Red, I love you.

*

S
ometime later, probably only minutes but I had no way to tell, I stopped crying and started dragging Red out of the mansion. No one knew where we were and there was no way I was going to leave him, not even for the time it took to walk to the nearest houses. Not that I could, naked and covered in blood.

Red was alive but unconscious and already the wounds on his body were closing up, as were mine. I moved him a few feet and then saw the stairs I intended to go up were missing, smashed to pieces on the ground. They'd been intact when we'd rescued Donald Crisp. Maybe some Toulouses had come back and done this?

I hobbled around, never letting Red out of my sight, looking for another way out. The ground floor was a good twelve foot above me. Even if both of us had been fine there was no way we'd be able to get up there.

Eventually I found a door that led to a carpeted corridor that sloped upwards. I went back to Red and pulled him along with me.

More time. My world was pulling, resting, breathing, exhaustion. Once I got Red into the corridor it went a little faster because I wasn't so worried about dragging him through spiky rubble. The corridor continued upwards until finally it reached a door that was locked from the inside. I unlocked it and it swung open and the daylight swarmed in. With my eyes throbbing and squinting, I pulled Red out into the light and on to the grass.

I was around the back of the mansion, away from the house and had emerged from what looked like a rundown shack. Standing about twenty feet away was a shiny new wooden cabin, not much larger than a child's outdoor playhouse. I left Red on the grass and went over to it. There was a key under the mat and inside there was a queen-sized bed, a tiny shower area with a sink, and a fridge. It smelt of new wood and Red, overlaid upon it. Maybe somewhere he slept after working on the mansion if he didn't want to go home?

I pulled Red across the grass, arms shaking, and into the cabin.

I wanted to get him up on the bed but that last pull had almost destroyed me. I was having trouble standing. On legs that felt like they were going to give out at any moment, I tottered across the room to the fridge and opened it, breathing in the cool air that washed out. Orange juice. Bread. Peanut butter in the fridge. I pulled the food out and sat on the floor, drinking the juice from the bottle, eating the bread and peanut butter with my hands. I gulped and ate and sat, exhausted, leaning against the fridge door.

It wasn't long before the sugar hit me and my hands stopped shaking. Not long after that I found a single cereal bowl in the cupboard that I filled with water and used a towel to wash the blood off Red. I couldn't move him from the floor so I had to make a few trips back and forth from the bathroom to wring out the towel. Eventually I cleaned him off and then I dragged myself to the shower to do the same. My cuts were closed over but some of them still stung. I washed the dirt and blood off me and then wrapped the only other towel around my body before returning to Red.

There was no phone in this micro cabin nor any clothes. I had a wet towel and a bloody towel and that was it. I guess I could wrap a towel around me and find a friendly neighbor but I could barely stand, let along walk back to town. Exhaustion was crushing me and sleep was calling to sit on the bed. I knew if I did, I'd be asleep instantly and I didn't want to leave him on the hard floor. I took a few deep breaths, put my hands under his armpits and with one final tremendous heave, I got him up on the bed. I pulled the sheet over him and intended to keep awake, to watch him, to make sure he was going to be okay but my body had other plans and soon I was asleep, breathing in the scent of Red next to me.

*

"H
arper."

I was awake but I couldn't open my eyes. I moved and felt my body ache and then a sting on my eyelids as I tried to open them. I brought my hands up and felt my eyelashes glued together with sleep and grit. As I slept, my body had cleaned all the dirt out of my eyes that must have collected in there. I rubbed them and eventually got my eyes open to find Red laying next to me, a soft smile on his lips.

Words, words, words, now was the time for them to line up and march out. Yesterday I'd babbled over and over that I loved him but he'd been unconscious. Had he heard me at all? I felt words trembling on my tongue, explanation for why I'd left, all the sentences I couldn't say before piled up and ready to come tumbling out.

But still.

But still, I stayed silent.

"What happened to your shoulder?"

He reached out his finger and gently brushed my arm, near the cut he'd given me.

"I got scratched."

Not a lie. It was a sort of truth.

Red frowned and then I saw him look at his own hands, covered in healing cuts.

"I went ... away. Didn't I."

I nodded, afraid to speak.

"I hurt you."

His voice was monotone and I could feel his pain.

"It was just a scratch. Nothing."

Red didn't answer. I saw tiny flecks of gold sparkle in his eyes and just when I thought he'd speak, tears began trickling down his face.