WithHerCraving (11 page)

It was a small lake. Katrin ran around it twice then walked
it a third time. The moon reflected in the placid, inky-black water. The water
was still, not one ripple. It contrasted with the turmoil in her brain. Her
claws cut deep into the mud-packed bank. After her third time around the small
pool of water, all she smelled was her own scent. While walking, searching for
release so her brain would be as cool and undisturbed as the body of water she
circled, Katrin accepted her tainted scent.

Along with her usual scent—wait, make that her new scent,
which was now a mixture of her and Jarvis—there existed the still-dominant
sexual aroma. It floated in the air. As she walked she swore if she stared
straight ahead, let her gaze go out of focus, she would see waves of sexual
yearning she’d left behind in her previous lap around the lake. How many times
would she have to circle the lake before thoughts of Jarvis drifted out of her
body?

Katrin kept her sight sharp. Her thoughts were ridiculous.
Running without going anywhere wouldn’t take away the obvious. Although if she
ran to the States right now she doubted she’d be far enough to put Jarvis out
of her head. The facts were simple. She had lived among a pack for a few weeks.
It hadn’t worked out. She had left the pack. Therefore, now, her only focus lay
on planning out her immediate future.

It was one reason she remained in her fur. Her more primal,
instinctive side prevailed. Katrin didn’t want to deal with her emotional side
right now. She rounded the near side of the lake, which curved more than the
other side, and forced her attention to the thick patches of trees to the east
of her. She’d run from the east and didn’t want to give that direction her
attention. The sensible action right now entailed securing shelter and finding
food. Looking around her, both tasks seemed feasible.

After sniffing the air, this time forcing herself to seek
out all scents other than her own, Katrin decided a patch of grass under
several trees would be the perfect place for temporary lodging. By the time the
moon was high in the sky and much smaller than when she’d first arrived at the
lake, she’d hauled enough broken branches and decent-sized rocks to raise two
sturdy walls. Katrin hurried back and forth, pulling her supplies from around
the trees on the east side of the lake.

All the while she sniffed the air, became one with the
different smells around her. The night was peaceful and there were no smells of
predators. But the one scent she couldn’t stop searching for never appeared.

Katrin remained in her fur, pushing herself to build her temporary
lodging. She’d run until she dropped if that was what it took to obliterate the
heavy weight pushing in around her heart. She would run back and forth, haul
all the supplies needed to build the best damn walls ever built. Whatever it
took to erase the pain and the fact that she’d destroyed her chance at
happiness.

Katrin dragged branches with her teeth, rolled rocks with
her head, then built her walls. She stacked and reinforced with thorough,
painstaking efforts, just as any creature did when building the structure where
they would live in the wild.

It crossed her mind that she built such strong walls because
her subconscious was fighting for reinforcement to keep the pain out. The walls
around her heart weren’t enough, so she created better walls now. Katrin
dismissed the thought.

It might take some time before Jarvis met her here. Making
the structure was practical to protect her from the weather and would allow her
to sleep without worrying about other predators.

He never said he would come.

Katrin dismissed that thought immediately as a natural human
fear. Of course he would join her. They were mated. He had howled as much the
last time they’d made love.

The mere thought of them fucking made her swell inside. She
ached for him instantly. Her pussy was wet before she could shove images of his
muscular, damp body over hers, impaling her repeatedly with his rock-hard cock.

Katrin felt her fur dampen between her legs and moaned.
Thinking like this made her work harder. Taking her first break after hours of
hard physical labor, she walked to the lake and drank. The water was cold and
refreshing and she lapped, lifting her head occasionally to sniff the air and
take in her surroundings. There were only a couple hours until dawn. She’d
worked through the night. Suddenly she was stiff, hurt all over and exhausted.

A cold breeze hit her, rattling the leaves in the trees
behind her, and she shivered. It brought with it the smell of the dirt she’d
unearthed during her many treks back and forth hauling supplies for her walls.
She breathed in the scents from surrounding evergreens and the dense patch of
trees. She still smelled her desire for Jarvis. Katrin gave herself a fierce
shake, willing her fur between her legs to dry and the need inside her for a
male who wasn’t here to go away.

Taking another look around, making sure she hadn’t missed
the smell of any nearby predators, Katrin noticed for the first time since
beginning work on her makeshift den that it was incredibly dark. Clouds now
covered the sky, hiding the moon. It no longer reflected in the water. Instead,
when she looked across the small lake, its inky-black stillness looked as cold
and uninviting as the pending hours ahead of her.

Run, my little Cariboo. Leave here before it’s too late.

Jarvis’ final words rang through her head. Katrin had done a
terrible thing. Not once in her life had she ever challenged the elements.

Forgotten memories of when she’d been a cub with her
littermates, prancing around her as they fought for their sire’s attention, came
back to her. Their mother had forbidden their sire to ever use the elements the
way Malta werewolves did. She and her littermates had lain in bed listening as
their sire and mother had discussed the persecution Malta werewolves had
endured since fleeing Malta. Most of the breed had died there when not humans,
but other werewolves, had tried killing all of them.

When her sire had been a cub, the Malta pack leader and his
mate had learned how to challenge the elements. Be it earth, fire, wind or
water, that pack leader developed a part of his brain and had mastered all
four. And he’d sought out every member of his pack and worked with those who
also were able to control the elements. Malta werewolves were able to start
fires with their minds. They could draw water from a river or lake and force it
to flood the ground. They were able to draw upon the wind, cause it to blow
hard enough to hurl a werewolf across a meadow. And by focusing on a tree
trunk, they could heave it up and send it sprawling to its side.

Katrin remembered running with her sire and littermates.
They were happy memories. Her sire, in his shiny black glory, with his long,
straight coat flowing toward the ground, would run back and forth, circling
Katrin when her shorter legs made it harder for her to keep up on their run.
There had been many runs like that. She was sure of it, when her sire took the
three of them, Katrin, Leisa and Magda, for runs into the mountains. Now it was
clear he probably ran the cubs and brought them back to their den exhausted in
order to give their mother a break. She and her littermates would crash around
their fire and sleep with happy, peaceful dreams after spending time with their
sire.

But on that one particular run when Katrin had been possibly
seven or eight, it had been an exceptionally warm day on the mountain. Her sire
had chased each of them up the mountain in their fur, snapping and growling
fiercely as he nipped at their paws. Katrin had barked with happiness. She
would have been laughing until she cried if they had been in their flesh.

When they reached a small, isolated waterfall, all of them
had splashed into it, enjoying the cool water, which would have been as warm as
it would have gotten that high in the mountain. Katrin recalled her sire had
changed into his flesh first. Of course all three of them had raced to follow
suit. Then they’d splashed in the water, taking turns racing into the waterfall
until she and her littermates had been content to simply float in the small
pool surrounded by rocks with an endless blue sky above them.

She wasn’t sure why she’d forgotten this particular memory.
It was the only time her sire had shown them the true colors of his breed.

Katrin was pretty sure it had been her oldest littermate who
had first whined to their papa for food.

“I’m hungry,” Magda had complained.

“Catch a fish.” Sire had been squatting, so the
sparkling, frothy water danced around the thick hair on his chest.

“But there aren’t any fish, sire,” Leisa had whined.

Leisa had always been the one to moan and howl the loudest
over any small thing. Katrin even remembered her mama pointing that out on more
than one occasion. Since Leisa had that label, Katrin had always been very
careful never to whine. She had always asked politely or had figured out how to
take care of herself. Her sire and mama would never growl anything derogatory
about her.

“Aren’t there?” Her sire’s eyes had been closed and his
face to the sky. “We’ve chased them all away. Now we’ll starve.” He’d said it
in a voice exaggerated so that instantly Katrin and her littermates had
laughed. “What is a sire to do when his three beautiful cubs don’t believe
him?”

“Sire, we’ll never starve,” Magda had explained, always
the practical one. “We’re the greatest hunters on the mountain. There is plenty
of food.”

“Ahh, see, problem solved.” He relaxed farther in the
water with his eyes closed and face to the sky.

“The problem isn’t solved,” Magda pressed. “All of us are
hungry.”

Katrin didn’t remember if she had howled her concurrence or
not. But almost always as a cub Magda had deemed herself the one to howl for
all three of them. Katrin was never excluded when Magda had decided their sire
or mama needed to do something for the three of them.

“Oh yes. Of course. That’s right.” Their sire had lowered
his head and opened his eyes, looking at all three of them as if he were ready
to play. “So we should eat, yes?”

“Yes!” All three of them had howled and leapt on their
sire.

“Out of the water. All of you. Go to the bank over there
and lie in the sun. Your sire shall do the hunting.”

Except he hadn’t gotten out of the water with them. He
had stood so the water waved at his waist. And her sire had done the most
amazing thing.

Katrin didn’t remember being scared. She hadn’t smelled
any fear on her littermates. This was their sire, the most perfect male in the
universe, and he could do no wrong. Katrin had loved him with all her heart and
trusted him with her life, as any cub would their parents.

The water they had played in had risen over their heads
like a clear puddle in the sky. Cloud-shaped and beautiful, it had floated
above them. One of her littermates had gasped.

“Quick, my little hunters. Grab the fish,” their sire had
said, his grin and happy expression making it even more impossible to be
scared.

Katrin, always the one with something to prove to her
older littermates, had leaped from the bank into the muddy hole in the ground
where all the water had just been. Fish flopped at her feet and were slippery
in her hands. Without asking, she had embraced the change, possibly because she
had been too excited to prevent it. Also, raw fish tasted so much better in her
fur. She had been greedy but her littermates were quick to follow suit and grab
their fair share. All three of them had stretched out, stuffed after that, and
had listened as their sire howled to them about Malta werewolves.

Katrin stood, realizing she’d been sitting next to the lake
and staring ahead as the memory of being a cub with her sire had played out in
her mind. Her sire had made it clear when she’d been a cub, and again later
when she had asked, that it wasn’t magic or some strange alteration of the
mind. He had assured her that howlings about such things were false and would
always smell that way. Malta werewolves had simply focused on using their
minds, as well as their physical strength, to bend the world to their needs.

Their mama had forbidden their sire to teach her cubs how to
use the elements. Their sire had called it a gift but their mama had insisted
it was a curse. Or at least it would be to Katrin, Leisa and Magda. Their mama
had growled fiercely that teaching any of them how to do the things Malta
werewolves did would exile them. They would be killed by their own kind. Their
mama had howled that each of her cubs would be raised
normally
, as she
put it.

The breeze turned into a blustery wind and the clouds that
had blocked the moon were now darker against a pending sunrise. Katrin turned
and inspected her temporary den. She needed a roof—all of her hard work through
the night would be pointless if it started to rain. Every loose branch that had
been on the ground now stood vertically or intertwined horizontally, making her
walls.

Katrin stared at the trees behind her. The
gift,
as
her sire had called it, had turned out to be the curse her mama had howled it
would be. She had run out of the McAllister den when she’d heard Jarvis and
McAllister snarling at each other. When McAllister had lunged at Jarvis, his
fangs and claws bared, she’d acted on instinct. Katrin didn’t remember even
thinking about what she would do. She had protected Jarvis and had thrown both
males through the air with her mind.

Could she do it again now if she thought about it? The blood
ran through her veins. Katrin couldn’t do anything about being half Malta
werewolf. Nor would she ever despise her sire for who he had been. He was the
most honorable, dedicated and wonderful male she had ever known.