Lone Wolf (Shifters' World 1)

Lone Wolf
Afters

Published by James Grieve Press

©
Ruby Fielding 2013

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Cover images © Kiselev Andrey Valerevich and Triff, with
design by James Grieve

This ebook is copyright material and no portion of it may be reproduced or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law.

She woke to birdsong, alone.

Her body ached, her mouth was dry and tasted bad. At least
she didn’t have that hungry knot twisting her belly any more. Food yesterday
had been a welcome relief.

She opened her eyes. Sun angled in through the trees and the
gaps in the broken roof. The shadow of a supporting beam drew a black line
across the broken concrete floor. This ruined building had once been a hunter’s
lodge, she guessed, or maybe some kind of private forest retreat. Back when the
world had been a different place.

She sat, stretched, found her clothes in a pile nearby and
stood to pull them on. A pair of loose-fitting jeans held up with a length of
cord, a sweatshirt bearing the logo of some long-forgotten college. She found
her stash of willow-bark and used a strip to rub her teeth clean. She would be
nothing if she didn’t look after herself. If she gave up these last scraps of
civilization she knew she would have lost.

It was more than simply looking after herself: it was human
dignity, her sense of who she was. You keep yourself clean, you don’t sleep in
your clothes, you do all you can to retain the civilized person you once were.

In a shard of broken mirror she looked at herself, the
shadows under her eyes, her shaggy, uncut hair.

This is me
, she thought. It wasn’t a question of
liking it or not.

This is me.

§

There were signs of activity outside again.

Nothing obvious. Just a sense that something had been here,
and those big paw-prints in the dirt.

She surveyed the tangle of undergrowth around the clearing
that had once been this building’s front yard. Nothing. No beady eyes staring
back.

You couldn’t trust that, though. You couldn’t trust anything
any more. Not even… your memory.

Moments before... gazing into that shard from a broken
mirror. She knew that fragment was a prized possession. She knew that this was
a place where she felt relatively secure in a world that was no longer safe.

But the face in that reflection... She did not know who she
was, or who she had become.

She did not know who she had been.

Her heart raced, as she feared that finally her time had
come. One of the viruses, one of the great plagues... was this the first sign
that something was bringing her down? Were the sweat on her brow, the blanks in
her memory and the racing of her heart signs of panic, or symptoms of something
worse?

She took a deep breath and held it until her heart slowed.
She reminded herself that, sick or not, she must do what she could to survive.
All she had were hope and her treasured few remnants of the civilized world.

§

Happy that there was no immediate danger, she gathered the
empty water drum from just inside the ruined wall and set off on the rough
trail that led through the undergrowth and down into the trees. She was lucky
to have somewhere like this: a building with a door that closed and walls that
were reasonably intact until just past the level of her head. It might not look
much, but it was a castle to her.

Before long, the track leveled, cutting across the sloping
forest floor and then, ahead of her, there was a splash of sunlight where the
trees thinned.

She approached cautiously, a lesson well lodged in her head
despite her failing memory. Clean water was a place where animals gathered, and
therefore a place of danger.

She came to a place where creepers hung down from the trees
forming a natural screen, a vantage point she used every time she came here.

She sensed threat before she saw anything. It was something
in the air. Maybe sounds her ears had picked up but her brain was yet to
process. A strange scent, perhaps.

As her eyes adjusted to the bright light of the clearing she
surveyed the forest fringe, looking to see if anything was lurking in the
shadows. There was nothing, and then she looked at the pool itself and saw
rings of spreading ripples followed by a sudden swelling of the water as a
bulbous object emerged.

A head. A man’s head, dark hair and beard plastered flat by
the water. Pale shoulders, a dark smudge of hair to the chest as he bobbed up
and then settled again, deeper in the water. He raised a hand to rub water from
his eyes, then flicked his hair back, creating a fountain of glimmering
droplets flying through the air.

And then, as if water were his natural element, he dipped
forward. His head submerged as his back appeared, a sinuous, flowing movement,
and then his butt, legs, feet and he was gone once more, lost below the
churning surface of the pool.

Briefly transfixed by the sight of the man, which had lasted
only a moment, she tore her eyes away and searched the forest perimeter again
for signs of any others.

Nothing.

She waited, and then there was another swelling of water and
the man’s head and shoulders bobbed up again, followed by the same eyes-swipe
and head flick.

She didn’t know what to do. If she slipped away, she would
never know where he went, only that there was a stranger here in her forest.
But what else? She could hardly approach him. That would be too dangerous. He
was an unknown, a risk.

She needed water, too, and the spring that fed this pool was
the only safe source she knew.

What to do?

She watched him carefully, now picking up all those clues
that must have been subliminal before. A grunt as he cleared his throat, an
irregular splash of water as he moved, almost lost to the steady gurgle from
the stream. A scent in the air, perhaps. When you live a life like this your
senses become attuned to these things.

§

He had been lying back in the water, arms spread, eyes shut,
drifting slowly until now he straightened, found his footing on the rocky
bottom of the pool – she knew the slimy hardness of those rocks so well! – and
stood.

Swaying for balance, the water came up to his ribs now.

His arms were long and lean, his frame wiry and muscular. He
had the look of a fighter, a scrapper. A survivor.

That smudge of dark hair thickened across his chest, down
over his ribs and over his belly, she saw as he started to emerge from the
water, treading carefully as he headed towards dry land... towards
her
.

His belly rippled with muscles and looked hard, dark with
that hair as it thickened towards...

She swallowed as he paused, the water around his thighs and
the long shaft of his manhood hanging down, fat and heavy. Its head just
touched the water’s surface, sending its own ripples spreading outwards.

She reached down, fingers trailing across her ribs, her
belly, to the waistband of her jeans, that belt of cord and the hardness she
had tucked there before venturing out.

Easing it free, she raised the handgun, suddenly very aware
of its weight. She didn’t aim it yet, just stood there with it poised. A solid
lump of reassurance in her hands.

The man stretched, yawning, and she watched his manhood
twitch, and then flop to one side as he took another step out of the water. Its
length swung easily as he moved.

“You got a silver bullet in that thing?”

He was staring right at the screen of vegetation, as if he
could see through it!

She didn’t move. She wasn’t the only one whose senses were
attuned to the environment, it seemed.

“If so, you don’t want to be wasting that silver bullet on
me,” the man went on.

How long since she’d heard another voice? She didn’t know.
Another memory lost, or buried deep

“It’s an old wives’ tale anyhow.” The man’s tone was easy,
conversational; no indication from his voice that she had a handgun that was
now trained on him and he was standing their butt-naked in front of her.
“Silver bullet or any old bullet – you hit one of the beasts right in the head
or in the heart and it’ll drop just like a man. Useful piece of information
that, and I’m giving it you as a gift, you hear me?”

One more step, another, and he was clear of the water.

She studied him, unable to deny the base feelings the sight
stirred in her. How long had it been? Since the touch of another human, of bare
skin against her own. The intimacy,  and the trust.

And damn, but he was growing hard as he stood there! As he’d
been talking, that shaft had thickened even more as it filled out, hung longer,
then started to push away from his body. Now, like an animal emerging from its
lair, the swollen purple head started to break free, the skin rolling back to
reveal that most intimate of places.

Now, the man shrugged, and a shy smile broke across his
face. “I think I need to apologize, ma’am. It’s been a time and I guess my
body’s got a few less manners than the rest of me. If you’d just allow me
to...?” He nodded towards a pile of clothes nearby.

She caught herself. She had to pull herself together, stop
reacting like this. She was a woman. She was a human. She was in control of
herself and her responses. She wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted by...

“No,” she snapped.

How long since she’d spoken aloud? Her voice was dry, little
more than a croak. “You wait there where I can see you,” she went on. “Ain’t no
reason why I should trust you with your things.” Who knew what he might have
concealed there with his clothes?

He shrugged, and spread his hands briefly, as if to
acknowledge the sense in her caution, and damn, but that thing of his just
cranked itself up a notch or two higher as, finally, she broke free of her
hiding place and came to stand before him.

§

Close to, he was younger than she had guessed. No gray to
his hair, no craggy lines to his face. A few scars on his body, but that could
happen any age.

Now it was his turn for eyes to roam, and suddenly she was
reminded of when she’d checked herself in that shard of mirror earlier on,
remembering how exhausted she had looked and – fainter – a time when that kind
of thing had mattered a whole lot more than it did now.

“You can shoot me now, if that’s what you want to do,” he
said, his tone still conversational. “But I suggest you don’t want to do
anything that’s going to make so much noise. Never know what you might draw in,
and that’s not meant to be a threat, although it sounded like one. Just common
caution.”

He moved his hands to cover himself, cupping his manhood but
barely containing it.

“You could just let me get my things and I’d beat my
retreat. That’d be a sensible thing to do – no point killing off those of us
who may just be ordinary good folk like yourself when some day you may come to
realize just how rare a commodity we are. But then I’d be the first to
acknowledge the inherent risk in that proposition, ma’am. Set me free and how
do you know I’ll be as good as my word and won’t just hang around until I can
take you off guard and do whatever it is I might be wanting to do?”

As he shrugged, she couldn’t help but notice the movement of
his hands, pulled by the raising of his shoulders, and the slight gasp that
induced in him. Damn, but her guard was low today! She’d never have thought she
would be drawn so much to the physical...

She lowered her aim until it was pointing at his crotch. “Am
I to take
that
as a sign of what you ‘might be wanting to do’?” she
asked.

“No ma’am. That’s just what a man’s body does when he puts
himself naked before...” he stopped. “Hell,” he then started again. “That’s
just a natural response, ma’am. Ain’t much I can do about it, I’m afraid.”

“So what’s it to be?” she asked him. “Shoot you or set you
free on the promise there’ll never be a hint of you round these parts again?”

“You asking my advice? Hell, if I were you I’d take the
third option, ma’am.”

§

The third option was that they talk. “It’s the one thing
we’re really good at, and the beasts just ain’t,” the man had said, as he
pulled his pants up and tied them secure around his waist. “And it’s a pretty
rare opportunity these days, in my experience at least.”