Authors: Camilla Chafer
“We can.” He dipped his head to nuzzle the hollow of my neck, his stubble brushing against my cheek as he lifted his head to nibble my ear lobe.
“We really can’t.”
“We were about to,” Gage pointed out. Oh, as if I didn’t know that all too well.
I pushed him a little further up and all too late, as Gage gazed down at me, a smile broadening across his face, I remembered that I was completely naked from the waist up. He bent his head and before I could wonder what he was doing, he licked me, starting at my naval and running upwards, through my cleavage. My eyes widened in surprise. His tongue was rougher against my skin than a human’s should be, not that I had ever let a human
lick
me, and it was deeply, oddly, intimate. He kissed the recess between my collarbones and looked at me almost dreamily.
“You taste lovely,” he murmured, his words vibrating on my skin then he merely brushed his lips against mine and rolled off me to lie on his back on the cool floor. We lay there side by side, staring at the ceiling. Finally he turned his head to me, eyes flickering down and I groped the floor for my shirt, finally finding it under my fingertips and I eased it to me a fraction at a time until I could clutch a chunk of cotton. There was barely any point pulling it on now it was missing its buttons so instead I just held the shirt across me as I swung upright and rested my back against the wall, my knees self-consciously drawn to my chest.
“So a witch, huh?” Gage stretched out on the floor and crossed his legs.
I raised my eyebrows. “A wolf?”
Gage nodded.
“It’s you I hear howling in the woods?”
Another nod. “Or one of the pack.”
“Do I know the pack?”
“Annalise, for one.” Of course, the smaller wolf with the pink flecks. A dead giveaway. “You know others but it’s really not my place to say. They’ll reveal themselves if they want to.”
“And you knew what I was?”
“Yup.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked, confusion etched across my face.
“Wasn’t sure if you knew.” I frowned at him, so he continued. “I only get a hint of it now and then, not often but it’s stronger when you use it, like today.”
“Does everyone know?” What I really meant was: how many wolves in Wilding knew what I was?
“Some probably realised, like I did. That show this morning would have confirmed it.” Gage shrugged and I tried not to admire his strong chest, finely sprinkled with hair – fur? “I told you, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said at last and I really wasn’t. Not now, anyway. Earlier today was debatable. “I’ve never seen a werewolf before. I didn’t think they existed!”
“Just like witches are only in fairytales?”
“Touché.” Daemons and vampires were real, too. Why shouldn’t there by werewolves as well? Goodness knows what else was out there; I just hadn’t expected to meet anything supernatural in Wilding, which just goes to show how little time I had spent thinking about my new world properly.
“I still want to take you to bed.” He rolled so that he was sat facing me, looking like he couldn’t decide whether to reach out for me or keep his hands to himself.
I shook my head, slowly. “It’s not going to happen.”
“Today,” Gage finished, a hint of a smirk on his face as he looked over his shoulder, over the sofa. “Coast is clear,” he said, easing to his feet and holding out his hand so I could take it. He pulled me to my feet like I was made of nothing but feather light cotton candy and I had to quickly adjust my shirt so it wasn’t about to slide off and give him a full frontal. Again. “I prefer you without that.”
When I said nothing he just shook his head, almost sadly. “I’ll make coffee,” he said and loped out of the room and down the hallway, leaving me stood there, barely clothed and bemused, and wondering if I should throw him out rather than let him pad around my house like he lived here.
I stooped to the floor, and scrambled for the buttons he’d shed, and my ripped bra, and with them in one hand, my shirt held to me with the other, I jogged into my bedroom. I balled up the shirt and dumped it in a drawer, the buttons on top of my dresser and pulled out a new bra and a t-shirt. No buttons, thankfully. The bra I dropped in the bin. I remembered to zipper my jeans. There wasn’t much I could do about my flushed skin... or the memory, or the lust that was rapidly becoming placed with guilt when Evan flashed into my mind. Evan who had just gone off and still hadn’t sent word I thought angrily, not like that really justified anything at all.
When I finally had myself under control enough to go into the kitchen, I found Gage lounging against the counter. He’d evidently retrieved his t-shirt from the floor while I’d been in my bedroom because he’d pulled it on. He had set out mugs and found the creamer I’d started stocking and the sugar bowl. The pot was perking nicely filling the kitchen with the aroma of coffee grounds. I sat and waited and thought about all the things I suddenly wanted to ask him. All the things that would get my mind off sex anyway.
“What were you doing out in the woods?” I asked at last when Gage had picked up the pot and poured steaming liquid into my cup.
“Running,” he said, pouring for himself second. “We prefer the night and the early morning, when it’s less obvious. Though most people round here are familiar with wolves, it’s not something we go out of the way to advertise.”
“Why did you all surround me?”
Gage’s forehead creased. “We didn’t surround you. Approached you, I guess, because our otherness was attracted to your otherness. I did tell you not to go out at night.” He waved the spoon at me like I was getting a ticking off.
“Because of my magic?”
“Because we’re wolves and it isn’t always safe.”
“It wasn’t night, anyway,” I protested. “Just early morning.”
“Same difference.”
“I can’t stay indoors. I like running.”
“I’m not expecting you to. I’ve always made sure the pack respected your boundaries and that won’t change now. If any other packs join us, I’ll warn you, okay?”
“You can ask them to do that?”
Gage nodded. “I can for our pack and others have to ask permission to hunt our territory.” He thought for a moment. “Besides, you can clearly look after yourself. I’ve never seen anyone just disappear. How did you do that?”
It was my turn to look nonchalant. “I can just do it. I don’t know how.”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other,” he mused.
“You want to start a witch-wolf outreach programme?” I stirred sugar into my coffee and sipped it while it was still scalding hot. It concerned me that we had gone from being entwined on my floor to talking like nothing had happened in a few easy steps. I had expected to feel uncomfortable, awkward, but I just felt easy with him. Uncomplicated.
“I think we’ve said our hellos.”
“Is Annalise pissed at me?”
“Worried. She didn’t want you to find out about us. Thought it might scare you off and she likes you.”
“You can tell her I’m not going anywhere. This is my home.” And it was, I realised. I wasn’t giving it up, or going anywhere. Not anytime soon. I could, I would, have a life here.
“She’ll be glad to hear that. I am.” Gage caught my eye and he held it until I broke away to gaze at my coffee. From under my eyelashes, I watched Gage raise his cup to his lips and take a swallow. I wanted to feel embarrassed that we’d nearly ripped each other’s clothes off and nearly had sex on my living room floor but I really couldn’t bring myself to be. But, my nagging conscience knew what we’d done wasn’t right and when I thought that, I thought of Evan and I jumped, tipping a dribble of coffee over me. Gage snatched a cloth off the counter and passed it to me and I dabbed at my jeans before I could. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I hadn’t realised he’d spoken until he said my name softly and I looked up, guiltily. He was standing next to me, close enough that I could inhale his earthy scent. “I said, why don’t you come out with me tonight? We could go to the movies again. Or out to dinner. A date.”
“I can’t,” I sputtered.
“It’s the daemon, right?”
I closed my eyes and nodded. When I didn’t speak, Gage sighed and moved backwards and took his seat at the table across from me again. He rested his wrists on the table, big hands surrounding the mug.
“You knew what he was too?”
“Of course. And he knows what I am too.” Gage seemed surprised that I’d asked that.
“He never said.” I felt bewildered. So that meant Étoile must have known too and neither of them had said anything to me. But I remembered Étoile had told me not to trust anyone; perhaps this is what she meant. It was all muddled in my head. They were so keen on me keeping myself safe and practising my magic, but neither thought it fit to mention that I was living next to wolves. Wolves who liked to roam in a pack throughout the woods.
“He should have. Or at least he should have taught you how to recognise others. You can recognise other witches, right?”
“Yes, I can feel their magic. And daemons, but they register differently.”
“But not wolves?”
“I’ve never met one before. You’re my first.”
Gage grinned and I pulled a face at him. So not what I meant to imply.
“Do you love the daemon?” he asked after a quiet pause.
“I... think so,” I said.
“You don’t sound so sure.”
So many thoughts and feelings were flittering through me. I thought I loved Evan, but he kept so much from me and his absence unnerved me now as much as it had when I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. He was secretive and mysterious and he only told me half truths and wouldn’t listen to me. There was passion all right, no question about that, but I wanted honesty and reliability too and right now I wasn’t sure if I was getting that. “I don’t want to talk about him with you,” I said eventually.
Gage just nodded, then asked, “How much do you know about our world?”
“Not much,” I confessed. “Evan and Étoile were teaching me.”
“Then you should be wondering why your friends aren’t teaching you everything.’ He got up and took his mug across to the sink. I heard the water whoosh out of the faucet as he rinsed the mug and placed it upside down on the drying rack while I was thinking about that. He was still behind me when he said. “You should be asking why your friends only tell you what they want you to know.”
“It’s not like that,” I said, the chair skidding back as I turned round. “They’ve been really good to me. Both of them have saved my life.” And I’d saved theirs, I thought, but I didn’t say that.
“Then they should enable you to live your life.”
I didn’t know quite what to make of that so I drank my coffee slowly until it was all gone and then I played with my mug, rolling it around in my hands until Gage took it from me and rinsed it out too.
“You’re not their pet, Stella.”
“I never said I was!” I exclaimed, looking up quickly. “You’re making assumptions!”
Gage looked at me for a moment, his gaze coolly assessing. He set my mug on the rack next to his. He leaned back against the counter, and ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip like he was ready to say more but was just about decided against it.
“Listen, I’ll go... unless you want me to stay.” He waited for me to protest but I didn’t, not because I didn’t enjoy his company – clearly I enjoyed it far too much – but because I wanted to chew over what he had said. I didn’t want to believe him that Evan and Étoile were holding things back from me, but I knew they had and in a big way and when I thought about it, perhaps that was why I hadn’t been so forthcoming about Chyler. What was that saying? Forewarned is forearmed. I was neither. “Come by later if you want to go to the movies. I’ll let Annalise come too so long as neither of you bullies me into a chick flick.”
I smiled at the thought of that, Gage wedged between us as we giggled through a romcom, but having seen Annalise’s stash of DVDs I figured he’d seen his fair share already, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said. The right thing to do was put distance between us, to not cloud my already shaky thoughts.
With a shake of his head Gage stepped towards the kitchen door and I followed behind him. At the front door, he turned back to me, his hand resting on the handle, not moving back as I brushed past him to unlock it. “I’m glad this is all out in the open,” he said.
I smiled tentatively. “Me too, though this magic business never seems to end. Witches, daemons, vampires, werewolves... what next?”
“Well, you know what they say. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” And he was gone before I even had a chance to gape at him. I rolled my eyes as I shut the door behind him. Trust Gage to get the last dirty word in.
Twelve
Annalise was on my doorstep as soon as it was decent the next day. “Please don’t be mad at me,” she said as she hovered uncertainly on the threshold before I beckoned her in. She threw herself onto the sofa closest to the fire, folding her legs under her but just keeping her shoes off the edge. I’d built the logs up and then thrown a shot of magic at it to kick start the flames. “I didn’t want to hide it from you but it’s not something you can really break out in conversation.”
“Hi! I’m a werewolf!” I chirped. “Easy.”
“Hi! I’m a witch!” Annalise chirped right back.
The corners of my mouth twitched upwards. “Touché. So why didn’t you say anything? Gage said you knew what I was.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’d think me running around the woods on all fours was creepy or something.”
“I don’t think you’re creepy at all.”