Cry Wolf (5 page)

“Your kind.”

“Shut up!” Malcolm whirled around and tried to flee, but Kelly darted around to block his way again. He roared at her, his teeth and nails going sharp.

“By that logic, you should have nothing to do with yourself, which would explain why you haven’t let yourself do a single damn thing these last few months,” Kelly continued, unfazed. He was young and inexperienced—at least with wolfkind—and his rudeness was excusable. Even healthy, she thought. If he could just snap…

But he pulled his wolf skin back in at the last minute, clinging to a tree trunk and breathing heavily.

“Like it or not, Malcolm, you can’t run from what’s inside of you,” Kelly said. “I know that better than you.
Both
the wolf and the witch make it so hard to live in this world. But it will go better for you if you run with the wolf instead of running away from it, or else you’re going to hurt someone. I don’t think you want to be that kind of wolf. Or that kind of man.”

“Just leave me alone,” he snarled. “I’m handling it.”

“You’re handling nothing,” Kelly said icily.

“I’ll deal with it my own way,” Malcolm said, stumbling deeper into the forest.

“You can’t shed the wolf pelt like a snakeskin,” Kelly called after him. “The wolf will catch up with you, and it will be hungry. It will consume anything in its path.”

Malcolm was out of sight, but he was not yet out of earshot. She said, “Let it come after me. I can take it.”

* * * *

As evening came and nightfall began its quick descent, Kelly crept out of her trailer then ran lightly over the snow. She was so nimble that her feet barely touched the cold. They hit the ground once again when she reached the edge of the woods, where the snow was thinner and more diffused by the canopy of the trees. Malcolm was all the way on the other side of the compound, but it wouldn’t take her longer than a minute to get there, even without the change.

But she did change. The moon’s silver felt like sunrays on her back as she shuddered, cracking and groaning, into her wolf skin. At night, her fur was the same colour as the snow. In the light, one could see it was actually so blonde it was almost but not quite white, much lighter than her own hair. She kept her eyes, though, two bright emeralds reflecting the same colour with the right angle of the moon.

As wonderful as the run was in her human skin, the wolf loved two things—human flesh and the earth beneath its feet. It wasn’t heaven—it felt too good for that, and nothing seduced by human blood could know heaven, not if those worship services she’d attended in her childhood were right. But as a werewolf, when she wasn’t hunting, she ran. There were few things better.

Malcolm’s human speed was no match for hers, and so he could not hope to outrun her in wolf skin. She jumped over him, legs stretching gracefully above his head. He ducked, tripped and rolled. When he leapt back up, Kelly heard the tearing of fabric and the creak of muscles lengthening. But Malcolm clenched his teeth, some of them fangs now, and held the change at bay.

Kelly admired his discipline. There was something to be said for going from shapeshifter to werewolf, even if shapeshifters didn’t change in quite the same way. His ability to hold a partial change suggested real potential if he ever chose to embrace his wolf. Not even Kelly could manage more than her teeth and claws most of the time. He couldn’t appreciate it now, but he had an amazing talent.

“Stay away from me,” he growled.

Oh, she liked the way his grey eyes went silver.

Kelly crouched, the fur along her spine rising. She could communicate telepathically with him if she wanted, but she didn’t have to. Her body spoke for her.

Make me.

Werewolves were like dogs or humans. There were a few who went rogue, who ran alone, but most wanted pack. Malcolm had been a part of one as a shapeshifter, and the werewolf transformation had torn him away from it.

He hadn’t been so close to a werewolf in skin since he had been bitten. She sensed the same pull that he was experiencing, the pull to join together after being so alone. And Malcolm had been even more alone than she, isolating himself when all he wanted was to be a part of something.

In all ways that pack entailed.

He was wolf and she was bitch and while the smell of man made their mouths water and the smell of shapeshifter stung their noses, the scent of another wolf meant home—not safe, but still welcome.

Kelly bared her teeth and crouched lower, not to submit but to spring. The muscles of her back legs coiled tight. She dug her claws into the earth. She remembered the feeling of connection to it that first day in the woods. She tasted the memory of her beginning as bittersweet.

It doesn’t have to be bitter for him
, Kelly told herself.
I think he’s had that for too long. Show him something sweeter. But start with savoury.

She lunged. Her giant paws hit his chest, knocking him over and leaving scratch marks where she’d struck him. Kelly overshot him then quickly whipped around to face him again.

He stumbled to his feet, clutching his chest. His eyes were practically white now, like bright silver coins, and he snarled. Something wicked uncurled in her belly. She grinned a wolf’s grin as Malcolm’s face lengthened and his spine spiked and cracked.

She leapt at him again. This time when she hit him, her claws dug into steel grey fur and a rougher, thicker hide than that of a man. His ribs exploded outward, cracking into pieces at the same time new bone was growing and enhancing his weaker human structure.

Malcolm was a tall, somewhat lanky working man. Not all werewolves were the same comparable size of their humans, but when the wolf wrenched itself from Malcolm’s human body, he grew into quite a large wolf. He was tall, taller than David, although not quite as broad as Grant had been. As a wolf in comparison to a human, Kelly could stare straight into an average woman’s eyes, which meant that she was no delicate flower of a werewolf, but Malcolm was at least twice her size.

When she hit him, he buried his muzzle in her shoulder and flipped her underneath him, pressing her down with his great paw. He growled from deep in his belly.

Kelly wriggled out, kicking up at his stomach then lashing out to snap at his leg before running, darting between the trees. Malcolm crashed through the brush in hot pursuit. The trees didn’t move out of his way like they did for her—really, she just knew they were coming. Instead, he barrelled through, shattering branches like bones and with as much regard for them as twigs.

I’ll let you catch me, but you’re going to have to earn it, wolf
.

If she were trying to escape, she could do so in a heartbeat. He could track her all night, but he would never catch her. If she wanted to fight him, she could do that, too. And if he were mad enough, she might have to, just to get the fight out of his system. But the wolf who followed her wasn’t furious yet. He was simply feral.

Kelly was chagrined to discover that she had missed this. After all the time she’d wished she could escape from what David had done to her, she hadn’t just found peace with it—perhaps she had come to like it, the way a kidnapped woman will eventually love the man holding her hostage. Was that what she was trying to do to Malcolm now?

But why not love it? From bushy tail to the tip of her cold, wet nose, as long as she didn’t smell human flesh, what wasn’t to love? There was no reason for even a dark glimmer of shame, not when her heart was pumping as a large wolf pursued her with the single-minded focus of a born hunter.

Kelly slowed down when they were a good distance away from the compound.

She turned around in a moonbeam to meet him.

Malcolm burst through the underbrush. Every strand of fur quivered from the low growls ripping through him and rolling from between his sharp, bared teeth. He was roughly five hundred pounds of deadly muscle, bone and teeth, with his sights set on her.

He was magnificent.

Kelly stared him down, not crouching, not bowing, not rolling over to show him her neck. She might be a bitch, but he wasn’t alpha. Unless Malcolm chose to step up for the role, they were on mostly even footing.

Come at me
, she thought.

The growls rumbling through him quieted, didn’t quite resemble roaring in her ears as before. He walked not towards her but around her, circling her. She followed him with her eyes until she could not see him anymore then turned her body, refusing to give him her back.

He seemed unsure what to do with her now that she wasn’t running. The wolf was probably receding with his anger enough for Malcolm to realise what he had become without the moon’s influence.

Instead, it had been hers.

Kelly sensed that he was going to bite her before he had even fully formed the thought. She met his mouth with a clash of hard, sharp fangs. Their heads tossed from side to side, their teeth locked. Malcolm had the benefit of his size and strength in this contest. The force with which he shook her head, snapping her neck back and forth, quickly began to hurt her.

Kelly reared up and swiped at his throat. He released her, which gave her the chance to nip at his throat without digging her teeth in. After all, she didn’t actually want to kill him. She danced away, showing that she had won that small contest, that it was a game and not a true battle. She wanted Malcolm to know
she
wasn’t fighting to the death.

Malcolm cocked his head, but the growl slowly returned.

As she feinted to the side to avoid his attack, Kelly latched onto his shoulder and pulled herself up to straddle him. She tasted sweet blood in her mouth, but she only bit for a grip on him.

He bucked up, twisted his neck this way and that to try to snap at her, but she was always out of the reach of his teeth. He tried using his back legs to scratch at her, which was semi-effective. She whimpered at the first scratch, but it didn’t really hurt her, and Malcolm huffed in frustration. He reared up like a horse, but that only made her grip her teeth deeper in his throat, clawing at him to keep her position. Then he got smart and began to roll. She had to release him to avoid being crushed.

Kelly then darted forward, a wicked snarl ripping from her belly. They reared up onto their hind legs, swiping their front paws at the thick ruffs at their chests. His size should have been an advantage again. By all rights, in an equitable battle between the two wolves, Malcolm should have had her submissive beneath him. But then, the power dynamics between them had been skewed from the beginning. It wasn’t that she didn’t fight fair—she always fought fair. It was just that he was so outmatched that she had to hold herself back to give him a chance at all. She was accustomed to it, since she’d never developed a taste for lupine dominance. She was, however, accustomed to alpha males, and he had not yet earned this bitch.

Malcolm whined high and loud as she hit him across the flank with an invisible whip. He broke away from her and ran around in circles to try to inspect it. Then he lunged again in renewed fury. She caught him across the cheek with the same invisible whip, this time drawing blood. His pale grey eyes glowed with a reddish tinge that likely mirrored her own.

They fought anew and this time it wasn’t play, but it wasn’t for blood and glory either. She nipped at his belly. He did the same. She reared up and he clashed with her. The pine needles in the trees above them trembled with their collective growls, like a small earthquake in their clearing.

He made to snatch the scruff of her neck in his teeth, but she grabbed him first and pressed him down, his chest to the ground. He tried to shake her off, but he could not dislodge her or push himself to his feet. His lips drew back from his teeth.

Kelly withdrew to stand a few paces from him. Then, as his legs coiled to spring, she returned to human skin. When he launched into the air, she changed him back as well.

He fell on her in mid-shift, his arms still long, his teeth still sharp and too big for his mouth. Using her legs and his momentum, she kicked out at his stomach, and he flew over her, tumbling onto the ground prostrate and winded. She back-somersaulted to her knees and jumped nimbly to stand over him, feet on either side of his hips. He wheezed and rolled to face her, holding his stomach through the rest of his transformation.

This time she could say it. “Come at me, wolf.”

He snapped his legs to the sides to knock her ankles out from under her, genuinely catching her by surprise. He grabbed her waist before she could fall on top of him, and she hovered above him by the sheer strength of his arms. His teeth, while human, were still bared and clenched.

“What are you playing at?” he growled.

Kelly’s hands were white in the moonlight. She caressed his face, brushing him as softly as ribbons, her hands whispering over his skin.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she whispered.

He abruptly let her go, shock bleeding the silver in his eyes to dullness. Kelly just couldn’t let that happen. She kept herself afloat, rising and falling a little above him as though she rested on water.

“I don’t want…” he began.

But then she lowered herself onto him and he met her mouth halfway. Kelly felt like she was burning, so close to another werewolf again. Her skin seared where he touched her, and from his groans, she knew he suffered the same fever. He wouldn’t know where it had come from or what drove him. He didn’t have to know. He just had to follow where that instinct was taking him. That was what the night—every night—was for.

They fought with their mouths and tongues and teeth as though they were still the wolves. They vied for dominance and both won. He was finished transforming back, but his arms were long and strong around her. When she caught his lip between sharp teeth, he groaned, eyes rolling back.

She kissed his neck. She sensed his quivering desire for her to bite down, but she would save that for another night, because there were parts of him that were far more needful at the moment, and Kelly had not yet hunted. She was hungry.

“What have you done to me?” Malcolm asked breathlessly. His body arched up to meet her as she moved her lips down his body and dipped her tongue into his navel. The blunt head of his leaking erection left a smudge on her chin.