Authors: Camilla Chafer
One of the wolves prowling by the tree line stepped tentatively onto the road and thrust its head to the sky, emitting a long, loud howl which stirred up the others, rumbling growls sounding from chests to throats. The big wolf in front of me, the alpha male I guessed, took another step forwards, barked once and silence settled over the wolves as they shuffled into a pack that milled across the road, cutting off my route home. There was simply no way I could get past them and I couldn’t keep running in the opposite direction. There was nowhere to go. Running wasn’t even an option – there was no way I could outrun any member of the pack.
The big wolf moved another step closer to me and I braced myself. Rooted to the spot, I couldn’t move backwards, I couldn’t move forwards, but I could drop my eyes submissively. I didn’t want them to think I was challenging them, especially when there was a good chance that they would... eat me. It wasn’t the cold that made me shiver this time; it was out and out fear. The wolf thrust its head forwards and sniffed again, its nose quivering as it locked onto my scent. Another wolf, a smaller one, stepped up alongside the black and grey wolf’s flank, its movements elegant and fluid. It took a long look at me before sitting back on its haunches on the cold road in a manner that made me feel slightly less terrified. Its coat was a lustrous grey and... was that flecks of pink edging its coat? Odd.
Forgetting that I didn’t want to give off any challenging signals I darted looks at the smaller wolf and its strange fur. It simply looked back at me, its tongue lolling over its lower jaw, panting. I couldn’t help the feeling that there was something awfully familiar about it. I felt my heart thud with anxiety and my muscles tightened as a familiar feeling started teasing my veins as I summoned my magic.
The big wolf sniffed the air again and took a step towards me. It growled and the smaller wolf nipped at its flank with a glint of large, white, super-sharp teeth. With another step forward the black and grey wolf closed in, leaving only a few paces between us. If I knelt down and stretched I could probably touch the tip of its nose. I didn’t, of course, because I wasn’t stupid. The pack were making no moves to leave; instead, more were stepping forwards and the road was teaming with wolves, some black and grey like the alpha, but some with solid coats and some much paler with glittering black eyes that calmly assessed me. I was so close to the alpha that I could see my reflection in his eyes.
There was no telling what they might do. If they attacked now, I’d never survive. I’d be shredded and my death would be slow and painful.
Around me I felt like the air was losing oxygen, leaving me dizzy as I tried not to hyperventilate with fear. Without thinking I stepped backwards and the wolf moved forwards again, his movements so graceful, like he knew he owned the road. It strained its head towards me and curled back its mouth to reveal a set of teeth that were brutal. I felt my magic tickle my skin as it reached the surface, then flow readily throughout me and finally dance on my skin. The wolf growled a low sound that rumbled through him and squared its shoulders, its legs tense, like it was poised to launch itself at me.
I took a deep, dizzying breath and got the hell out of there with a great surge of willpower and an even bigger surge of magic that cracked like a whip in the space I left behind.
As soon as I materialised in my living room I lurched to the front door and tested the handle. Still locked and the keys were in my pocket. I leant against the door, rasping breath back into my lungs. What the hell had I seen out there? No one had ever mentioned a pack of wolves roaming in the woods outside my house. It struck me that the pack weren’t afraid of humans; instead they seemed to be making it very clear that they were marking control of their territory as if I was the invader. I guessed it explained why there weren’t any animals out here; they’d be dinner. At least I wasn’t dinner, or breakfast as the case may be. Relief swept through me that I had been able to use my magic to get out of there and even though it was something I’d avoided using on such a scale over the past few months, it had come to me swiftly and easy. At least I hadn’t lost the knack of it. Perhaps it was time to fully embrace what I could do.
I breathed slowly – in and out in even breaths – while I tried to organise my thoughts. I’d had the strangest thought while I was facing them. I thought, no, I felt, that I
knew
the wolves and that wasn’t possible at all. It simply couldn’t be possible that my senses seemed to register them on some level.
I was just shrugging off my pants and top and folding them on to the chair in my bedroom, clinging to my relief that I was home safe and unhurt, the thought percolating in my brain when several knocks, quick and sharp in succession, sounded at the front door. It was rather too early for visitors. I pulled on my jeans and a check shirt, buttoning it quickly and padded barefoot to the door as I came to a very strange conclusion. There was no way I could describe what I felt, what I was sure was true and it was so far out of my frame of reference that I almost laughed at myself.
When I looked through the peephole, my thoughts edging into what couldn’t be real, I realised I wasn’t all that surprised by who my early morning visitor was. I flipped the lock and opened the door.
Gage stood in front of me, his hair dishevelled and with his usual few days of stubble covering his jaw. He had apparently dressed in a hurry in jeans, an untucked tee, work boots and a padded vest, unzipped. He looked wild and unpredictable. I looked at him for a long moment while he coolly glanced over me from head to foot like he was making a new and not altogether pleasant assessment of me.
“What are you?” I said at last, suspending all that I knew for all that I didn’t.
I hadn’t expected him to answer my question with a question, but I should have seen it coming.
“What exactly are
you
?” he growled.
Eleven
We stood there on the doorstep staring at each coolly for a moment longer than what was really comfortable before I stepped back and let Gage step over the threshold and into my domain. My mind argued with my heart loudly over this one but my heart won out. I’d lived opposite Gage for months and he and Annalise were my friends – I thought they were my friends, at least – and we’d lived without incident for all that time so there was no reason to be afraid of him. My mind, however, was protesting vehemently – I didn’t know what he was and now I suspected, I wasn’t sure I should trust him. Even so, he was in my living room now and I owed it to him to listen to an explanation. The events of the past few days had taught me that much.
As Gage stepped forward, I took a step back, taking care to not turn my back on him. What if I turned around and he was something else? What if I didn’t even have time to turn around?
“What are you?” he said again.
I was tempted to repeat the question back at him but really, it was about time we got past that and got down and dirty with some answers. “Don’t you think you should be giving me some answers? Or do I have to go to the woods and wait for you to cock your leg against a tree?”
Gage looked at me, unblinking, and I saw his pupils’ contract into oval shaped slits. His jaw shifted, longer, lower, his bones seemed to slide under his skin and I caught the flash of his teeth elongating, filling his jaw, then, in the blink of an eye, he was normal again. If I was less sure of myself, if I didn’t know that other beings lived amongst regular people, I would be considering the question of my sanity.
“Werewolf,” he said at last, “but then you know that.”
Know was a loose definition of suspecting something that should be impossible, but then I was the lesson in impossible. There was nothing on earth that should mean the things I could do were possible and yet I could. But a werewolf? I should have seen it coming.
Gage skirted around me, circled maybe, like he was herding his prey and I sidestepped to keep a wide expanse of room around me, giving me room to manoeuvre. I didn’t want to get caught cornered. I shouldn’t be afraid, I told myself as my heart picked up a beat, not in my own home. Not of Gage.
“What are you?” he asked for the third time while sweeping a look that took me in from head to toe, a look that made my heart race.
“Witch.”
I didn’t expect him to smile; it was just a flicker of his lips turning upwards at the edges. “Thought so,” he said.
“You knew?” I asked, surprised.
He shrugged. “Could smell your magic.”
I knew magic could leak, for want of a better word, and others could see it if it was left unchecked but that it had a scent too? Ewww. I’d taken more steps back than I thought I had and my back bumped into the wall. I made to slide the few inches along the wall to the hallway but Gage was in front of me in a flash, blocking my route.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.” But I didn’t sound very convincing and my heart was clamouring.
“I can hear your heart race.” Gage’s face was inches from mine and I could smell the woods on him, the scent of dew-soaked grass, leaves and earth mingled with something...
other
. I held my breath as he dipped his head toward me and whispered in my ear. “I can hear your lungs shudder. I know you’re afraid. Don’t be.”
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to say ‘my, what big teeth you have’?” I asked, rolling my head to look him in the eye. There was barely any space between us and I felt my fear abate into something more... lusty. The danger I’d been in while running, the adrenaline of my magic, the proximity of Gage; excitement swam unabated through me.
Gage huffed a low laugh and the space between us decreased millimetre by millimetre until his lips were brushing on mine, teasing my lips until the blood rushed to them, parting and allowing his tongue to slide into my mouth to tangle with mine. I could taste him, salty and sweet and delicious. His arms circled me, pulling me to him until I was pressed against his body and I wrapped my arms around him, suddenly desperate to have him ever closer, his heat flooding me.
He slipped his hand down my spine back to rest in the hollow of my back, pulling me into him, before travelling back up my body as his other hand caressed my hair, coiling it through his fingers, before travelling down, brushing my collarbone and lingering at the first closed button of my shirt. Through his urgent kisses I felt the button pop off and then the next. In the distant recesses of my mind, in the parts that weren’t governed by desire, I registered the sound of buttons clattering to the floor. He wasn’t wasting time unbuttoning my shirt; he was
slicing
the buttons off and then pushing the shirt off my shoulders. He barely broke away to shrug his vest on to the floor then rip off his own t-shirt before landing kisses on me again, my mouth, my cheeks, my jaw, leaning in to trail down my neck to my breasts, the skimpiest of material left between me and him. I swear he growled, a guttural, animal sound, and I pulled him to me again, my hands running through his hair and he hoisted me up, my legs wrapped round him for purchase as he held me against the wall. I could feel him push against me, hard and urgent, and I couldn’t help arch my back and drive against him as he tore my bra so we were nothing but skin against skin.
I felt the wall slide from behind me as Gage tightened his arms about me and tipped us to the floor. With his body pressed against me, and a hand behind my back so I didn’t thump my body against the wood, he lowered himself so he was sprawled between my legs. He held me to him, the intensity of his kisses making me faint and desperate as one hand fumbled with the button and zipper of my jeans. I heard him curse as he tugged them open. I arched, my body aching for him. It would have been so easy to shuck off my jeans and take him into me right now, to bask in his urgency and desire, to feel his heat surround me, to take comfort in how much he wanted me.
I barely heard the loud banging at the door over the hunger racing through me.
“Stella!” yelled a female voice. “Stella, it’s me.” I gasped and my head fell back from Gage and I lay there on the floor under him, while we panted air into gasping lungs..
“Stella, I just came to check you’re okay. Please don’t be mad at me.” I could imagine Annalise peering through the window, trying to see if I was at home because where else would I be this early in the morning? Where else should I have been? Not out running through the woods certainly, not to face a wolf with... pink highlights. I was glad I’d moved the sofa so that it was blocking us from view.
Gage’s hand slipped upwards, trailing slowly up my body until he lay still, fully resting against me. While my breathing was becoming more even, he most definitely had not calmed down if the bulge prodding at my thigh was anything to judge by. I looked into his strange, animal eyes and saw my reflection, hair pooling behind my head, wild, flushed skin.
I was almost naked, on my floor, with my wolf-man neighbour.
I didn’t quite know what to make of that.
“Okay, Stella, maybe you’re not there, but just in case you are, I’m really sorry. I should have said something but ... so should you!” said Annalise, indignation etched into her last words.
She was quiet for a moment like she was waiting for an answer then I heard her stomp off the porch. I guessed she would walk up the driveway and be in her house within a minute, but it didn’t matter. The moment was broken and she’d probably just saved me from doing something I’d regret. And really enjoy. Then regret.
Gage kissed me, long and slow without the fever of before and before I could change my mind – and part of me wanted to sink back into him and finish what we’d started – I had my hands on his shoulders and was pushing him gently, but firmly, off me. He was startled at first, confused even.
“We could continue this in the bedroom,” he whispered, his voice singing to the inner part of me that really, really wanted to. “Take our time.”
I hardly trusted myself to talk. “We can’t,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.