| |
“So you’re doing this.” Claw’s voice was like fermented honey, sweet at first with a bitter aftertaste. Inside my belly, the tether between us widened, strengthened. The pack bond filled me with a caffeine-like boost of energy...and at the same time worked against me. The harder I pressed against the inside of my wolf’s skin now, the more she resisted my impulse to shift.
Pack, she whispered.
He’ll still be your pack when you’re Val’s wolf.
My wolf’s reaction was wordlessly dismissive. The future was unknowable. She wanted to rub up against Claw now.
Focus, I gritted out as the human we were supposed to be partnering with danced around me to greet her brother. In lieu of an answer, my wolf planted her feet and stood frozen until two pairs of legs reappeared at eye level.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Val told her brother. “I think Olivia’s stuck.”
I wasn’t stuck. My wolf was recalcitrant. Whatever the reason, though, Val’s words were growing more and more distant, my vision tunneling in on the pool of saliva puddling on the floor between our paws.
Claw’s face at eye level, however, drew our attention. “Do you want me to leave?”
I should have said yes, but his presence sent warmth tunneling through chilled muscles. United about this, at least, my wolf and I swayed our head side to side in denial.
“And you need to shift?” Claw’s voice was a lifeline. It pulled me out of the agony of a transformation that wasn’t happening, reawakening my rational brain.
Yes, we needed to shift. Again, my wolf and I were in complete agreement. My job and future depended upon untarnished humanity. My wolf just wanted fingers so she could caress Claw’s skin.
Rather than nodding, we pushed once again for humanity. Nothing happened. Well, that’s not quite true. Our legs quivered, barely holding us upright. Our ears rang so loudly the sound overwhelmed the roaring of our breath.
Claw sighed, the deep gust of exhaled air redolent with disappointment. He didn’t approve, but he was willing to help us. “Okay, then. Val, turn your back.”
Clothes dropped into a pile on the floor beside me. Despite everything, I let my wolf peek out of the corner of one eye.
Muscles atop muscles. The sinuous grace of a well-honed predator. As usual, Claw’s mere proximity was making us pant.
Then he was lupine alongside us. Man, then wolf...then man again.
The tether running between me and Claw pulled us along in his undertow. Wolf then woman....
For one split second, my animal alter-ego began to leave my body. Paws scrabbled up the inside of my throat while something invisible yet very tangible pressed out of the top of my head.
Then Claw cleared his throat and the wrist-thick rope of light drew tight between us. It stretched. Strained. Snapped like a rubber band.
Not broken. Resilient.
The rebound flung my wolf back into my body. Blunt human teeth bit into the plastic statue.
Still here, the beast informed me.
Together, we spat out the statue that had done exactly no good.
***
“IT DIDN’T WORK.” VAL’S face was averted, but I smelled her disappointment even as she promised, “We’ll try again. Didn’t you say red ochre is important for this kind of ceremony? We’ll use red ochre. And sage incense. Next time will be a success.”
My bond to Claw had been the obvious problem, but I suspected Val was right also. The lack of a charging spark during my initial shift meant something had been left out early in the ceremony. I hadn’t been fully privy to the cave painter’s method of charging wolf statues. There must have been a trick that I’d missed.
For now, though, I needed to focus on managing my unruly animal nature. Because while we’d been united moments earlier, the beast’s moods were as fickle as weather in the spring.
My turn. My hunt, my wolf demanded. Today was her day. She was done being two-legged. We ripped the window blinds in our haste to locate the lock and push up the sash.
“You’re naked,” Val reminded us. “Students. Faculty.”
“Olivia.” Claw’s voice gave me the upper hand for one split second, then my wolf was once again grabbing for dominance.
Shift now. She was adamant, unwilling to budge on the issue.
Bargaining rarely worked when my wolf grew this headstrong. But we were both so deeply winded from four shifts in fast succession that I had a chance of making her listen to reason.
I hoped.
We’ll run tonight. I kept my inner voice firm, authoritative. Reflexively, I crossed my fingers behind my back.
Of course, it’s impossible to hoodwink your own alter-ego. Help me, the wolf countered, or I’ll eat a student.
Behind us, questions flowed in Val’s anxious soprano. Answers emerged in Claw’s deep baritone.
They wanted to help, but this was an issue between me and my monster. I blocked out both external voices and took the devil’s deal. Okay. We’ll shift and you’ll behave.
Yes. If she’d been human, we would have spat on our palms and shook on it. Instead, we bent double, waiting for paws to reappear.
United, we made progress toward achieving wolfhood. But it was painfully slow going. Straining against the bonds holding us in our present body, we clenched teeth to muffle a scream into a grunt.
“She’s shifting.” Val’s observation was heartening, a hint that I wouldn’t be stuck in this agony of limbo forever. Claw’s wordless rumble was less heartening, reminding me of the dangers I awoke when I turned my wolf loose in the human world.
I hoped our deal would hold. I hoped....
Then we were four-legged. Our head bowed as we sucked in oxygen. Adena cawed a question from a nearby branch.
Coming, my wolf answered, tail lifting. She recovered far more quickly than I had as a human. Our forefeet were already on the windowsill when Claw spoke to us.
“Go straight home.”
The pack bond I’d tried to excise twined around us, tempting the wolf to do his bidding. We scrabbled our way up onto the windowsill, turned back to glance once at those we left behind.
Val clutched my clothes to her chest, eyes wide and lips parted. Claw stood with arms crossed but made no attempt to hide his nakedness.
Our pack, my wolf whispered, tempted to stay here and hunt on campus.
“Go home,” Claw repeated, this time imbuing his words with the full electricity of an alpha’s order.
Werewolves obey their pack leader. Without further argument, we went.
***
SCUTTLING DOWN THE sidewalk with our tail between our legs and Adena soaring above us, we almost ran into Dick Duncan, former department chair and not my greatest fan. For half a second, I worried that he’d do something rash and trigger my wolf’s predatory instincts. But, of course, the professor didn’t know us from Adam in lupine form.
“Hey!” he complained as our nose made contact with the hem of his trousers.
My wolf lifted her tail jauntily in what he probably took as a welcome. Then she released the most foul-smelling fart imaginable as we trotted past.
Insult via flatulence. Classy.
Rather than respond to my relieved banter, the wolf continued running in the direction she’d been traveling, Claw’s order pushing her footsteps faster than they might ordinarily have gone. Tree-lined blocks sped past without further incident. Soon, we reached the narrow alley behind our own backyard.
Dropping to our belly, we crawled through the dog flap I’d installed three months earlier. We were in the kitchen. We were now officially home.
Claw’s compulsion fell away the instant our paws touched tiles. And, predictably, my wolf turned tail to go back out the way she’d come in.
Hunt. Deer. Now!
There are no deer in this neighborhood.
I couldn’t quite manage to make her stop walking. But my intrusion did cause our feet to tangle together. We tripped over our opposite impulses, winding up with our snout tucked beneath the kitchen island.
My wolf, unfortunately, was not sidetracked by the crumbs there. Big trees. Many deer. A vibrant memory of the forest ten miles distant consumed us. Wind in our fur. Birds in the trees. The heady sensation of running with pack.
I never should have let Claw talk me into that hunt two months earlier. Because my wolf was now handily forgetting the heavy traffic that separated us from her chosen destination. Was forgetting how Harry and Val had guarded the perimeter so Claw, Theta, and I could hunt without worrying about scaring human hikers.
No, we can’t.... I started. Without the pack, there would be no large-scale hunting. Plus, my wolf didn’t seem inclined to let me shift long enough to hop into the car and drive there.
Her disagreement was visceral. A punch to our gut. A whine in her throat.
And I found myself losing the capacity for rational thought just like she was. Losing words, sight, even the ability to hear Adena cawing a question from the backyard.
Vision tunneled toward darkness. Don’t do this.... I warned my wolf.
But it was too late. Instead, for the first time in three months, I fell into the past.