Her parents, in a rare moment of sanity, cut the trip short and they returned home. Seeing her splattered in blood had gotten through to them. They hadn’t noticed their teenage daughter in the back seat of the car looking wistfully out the window…
Cass shook off the memory and tried to focus on the here and now. In the
here and now
she was
cold and wet
and no matter how many times she returned to the past, it wouldn’t change the present. Besides, she’d made her choice back then like she’d made her choice now. The die was cast.
She shucked off her backpack, feeling relief as the weight came away. Then she patted her hand on the grass to ensure it was dry (it was) before dropping her backpack.
It was mid-morning and she’d been walking (trudging really) since the sun had come up and the pain of the last three days was already wearing down on her. At night she could barely sleep, expecting werewolves and boars, bears and hideous monsters to come upon her. The sky glimmered with a million stars but it was still so dark at times she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Between broken sleep, wet socks, cold weather and endless walking, Cass was starting to suspect she’d bitten off far more than she could chew.
She sat down on the grass and leaned against her backpack, feeling her back decompress and her feet start to throb as the weight came off them. All around her, birds twittered in the trees. Cass looked at the scene through half-lidded eyes and would’ve taken a picture had her phone not died on day one after being submerged in a puddle.
She sighed and between one breath and another the birds fell quiet. The perfect silence was so complete she could hear her own heart beating.
Perfect silence.
Cass started out of her drowse a moment later as a wolf howled and then another joined it.
They were here.
Werewolves.
*
In the ten years since she’d first encountered the werewolves who saved her, Cass had imagined meeting them many times. One fantasy had her on her way home from the Midnight Ball and her heel snaps off and one or both of them come to her rescue. Or she was
at
the Midnight Ball and one approaches her from across the dance floor. Perhaps at work and the new guy turns out to be a new
man
who looks awfully familiar…
From fifteen to twenty-five the fantasies had travelled from secretive kisses and hidden moments to entire nights that were far more explicit than her teenage mind could conjure. But they had one thing in common: she was looking spectacular when she met them again.
At the very least she would’ve taken standing on the grass and a formal introduction rather than sitting, drenched in mud and three days of sweat, stinking to the high heavens.
A giant black wolf the size of a horse walked out of the trees and Cass felt her breathing stop in her chest. If they weren’t friendly, she was dead. There was no way she’d be able to get away from this beast. It was the black werewolf, although a lot larger than the last time she’d seen him.
Following it came a brown wolf, almost as large, and riding it was a man.
Cass felt deep parts of her constrict. The sun was shining down on the clearing, warming her but it was nothing compared to the heat welling up inside her. This had to be the Alpha. The red werewolf.
Copper hair, wild and windswept, hanging down to his shoulders. Light hazel eyes, strong body and broad shoulders. She couldn’t take her gaze off the V of his body. He was dressed in light white cotton, easily removed if he had to shift.
Cass wanted to stand but her legs had turned to jelly. Between the black beast regarding her with cool blue eyes and the man
riding a wolf
she felt her head spinning.
The Alpha halted his wolf and dismounted, landing lightly on the grass in front of her. The whole time he kept his gaze fixed on Cass.
“I am Edon. Rey and I are Alphas of the Arctos pack.”
He waved his hand at the black wolf, who gave Cass a slow blink with his blue eyes and then looked back at Edon.
“We will fight for you.”
He stepped away from Cass and turned to face the black werewolf, removing his clothes.
*
As they came down through the forest and approached the girl, Edon had kept half an eye on Rey. He hadn’t been acting that unusual - growling, snarling and generally being a moody asshole were his thing - but there was some tone in his voice that was different this time.
He’d even considered ordering him away, although the chances of Rey listening to him seemed to be approaching zero recently. He’d taken to spending longer periods of time in his wolf form and his disdain for pack grievances and problems had gone from simmering under the surface to right out in the open. Although it was the job of the Alphas to keep the peace in the pack, Rey hated getting involved in what he saw as petty squabbles. A wolf who went to him with a problem was as likely to be flung across the room as helped.
It didn’t help matters that he and Edon were at odds about what to do to stop all the dead humans and the incursions on their territory. Rey wanted open war with teeth and claws. Edon wanted to use words and paper and so far they hadn’t reached any kind of compromise.
Despite his increasingly hostile attitude toward, well, everything, Edon had decided to take a chance and bring Rey along with him to see the human female who had entered their territory. Perhaps some time away from the pack would clear his mind. If by some slim chance the girl wasn’t totally repellent to him, maybe he’d come around to accepting they had to engage with humans if they wanted to keep their pack safe.
Perhaps and maybe. That’s how it was with Rey lately.
Now, as they came closer, he caught the girl’s scent and he understood in an instant he’d made a terrible mistake.
It was her. The girl that had plagued his thoughts for the last decade.
He and Rey would have to fight. One would die.
*
Cass had read about the uncontrollable mating urge that came across werewolves. The
thrall
it was called. Sometimes the
curse
. But everything had said it was only around an ovulating female. And that was definitely
not
her right now. If she had her dates right, she ovulated a few days ago and there was practically a whole month before that particular problem raised its head again. But now the two werewolves she’d been looking for had found her and were going to fight to the death? Was that how it worked?
Edon was naked, throwing his loose pants away and Cass was trying very hard not to look. The man was carved out of rock and as he and Rey circled, muscles moved and gleamed in the mid-morning sunlight.
“Please, stop.”
Cass surprised herself by finding her voice and then surprised herself again by leaping up and stepping toward them.
Before she could say anything else, Rey shifted into a man. It was a liquid movement of grace. A moment before there had been a wolf and now there was a man.
A naked man.
A very naked man layered in thick muscle. He was slightly taller than Edon and had wild black hair curling down to his shoulders. His arms were dusted with black hair and down below-
Cass gasped. She tried not to look but then she did and saw both of them. She turned red and looked up at their faces. They still weren’t looking at her but were intently focused on each other.
“Do not come closer. I will kill him and then mate with you.” Rey said, not taking his eyes off Edon.
He growled in return, his voice a feral cry and then they lunged for one another.
“No!”
Cass found herself moving in some moment of ridiculous foolishness and ran in between them.
Rey in front of her, Edon behind.
The two werewolves froze, unwilling to fight lest they injure her.
Up close, Rey towered over her and his body was perfect. Every muscle etched in marble. But unlike marble, he was hot and alive. She could feel the warmth radiating off his body. He’d a body and face of hard edges and the bestial look he wore terrified her.
Rey breathed in and looked down at her with his perfect blue eyes. They were as cold as sapphires. Then his pupils dilated, turning his eyes into pools of black ink.
“Please. I’ve waited so many years and come so far to find you both. Please don’t fight.”
She pressed her hand against each of their chests, feeling herself pinned between them, a pulse throbbing between her legs.
*
Edon managed to tear his gaze away from Rey, looking down, blood pounding in his head. This was perhaps no better - her curvy ass was sticking out, the wet fabric doing little to hide her shape, the mud doing nothing to cover her scent. Sweetness. Fear.
Arousal
.
He felt himself stiffen and the urge to tear off her clothes and mate with her nearly overwhelmed him.
Fighting every instinct he had pushing him to kill and mate, he closed his eyes. It was a dangerous move - Rey might take the opportunity to attack and he wouldn’t see it coming.
A little better. The tiny rational part of his mind was a whisper against the roaring wolf but at least he could hold back from killing Rey.
The whisper was telling him they must have both imprinted on her a decade ago.
The whisper was telling him they would have to fight to the death for her.
The whisper was telling him there was no other choice.
He hoped the whisper was wrong.
Edon opened his eyes and looked at Rey. He felt the surge of rage, the desire to kill him, rise up but it did not tip over into action. He saw Rey staring at the girl, his eyes dark pools, enthralled.
His heart sank as he realized Rey had imprinted on her too, all those years ago.
With great difficulty he managed to step back. It was only then Rey looked away from the girl and up at him.
“It’s the curse. We must take her back to the den and decide there.”
A feral look crossed Rey’s face and Edon saw the internal struggle going on inside him. He saw the girl’s hand move on Rey’s chest and the fury drain away. It didn’t disappear, but his friend did come back.
He looked down at the girl, snarled at her so she jumped back in shock and then shifted before bounding away.
*
For a moment, Cass was lost between the two men. Fear filled her from head to toe and she was tired and sore but the instant she stepped between Edon and Rey, she felt a throbbing start between her legs and each beat blurred her mind.
Then Edon had spoken, saying who knows what - she wasn’t listening, absorbed as she was in Rey’s eyes - and suddenly the beautiful man turned feral, his face angry and her fear came slamming back like a cold spike through her body. She felt his hot breath, felt his rage and then he was gone, shifted into a giant black wolf and away.
On shaking legs and with tears prickling her eyes she turned around. Edon had found his pants - thank god for that - and was slipping the loose cotton shirt on. Despite her shock, she felt a faint echo of the mad lust that had risen up in her. She pushed it away as best she could but it was insistent and to the point with its demands: sex with werewolf or werewolves. Now. Now. Now. Now.
“Nia will take you back to our den.”
The brown wolf stepped forward and knelt down so Cass could get up on her back. She stood there though, her mind whirling in disbelief. She’d known, thanks to the internet and a single photograph that had surfaced, there was a copper werewolf and a black one in this area. The detail was blurry but she was sure it was the ones who had rescued her all those years ago.
The plan had been to find them and then to… what? Meet them. See who they were. To thank them. Something like that. Now they had found her so easily she realized the plan had been:
Find werewolves.
?
Live happily ever after.
It was the question mark that was bothering her now. That, along with the fading echo of the lust that had filled her body upon meeting the two werewolves.
She wasn’t ready for this.
Tears started trickling down her face.
*
Rey watched from a distance as the girl burst into tears. Stupid weak creature. He felt a tiny surge of jealousy as Edon approached her and wrapped his arms around her but quickly dismissed it. Now he was the one being stupid and weak.
The fading echoes of the madness that had possessed him were almost gone and Rey was in near disbelief it had happened at all. He was the Alpha and control came as naturally to him as breathing. Control over others and control over himself. But he’d lost control, slipping into a kind of mindless insanity and only barely escaping it.
He saw the human and Edon step apart and saw with his keen eyes her wiping tears away. Her face had turned red and blotchy, making what was already weak and feeble even more unattractive. He ran his eyes over her body and a part of him admitted he liked the curves he saw. The way the tight fabric of her top pulled against her breasts. The outline of her ass under wet fabric. He could imagine snuffling is nose in there, tasting her sex.