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He came at me sideways. All paws the size of dinner plates and eyes full of predatory intensity.
My heart pounded. It was too late to flee from his aggression. Instead, I stood my ground, the air so thick I could barely breathe it in.
And...the wolf didn’t jump me. Instead, at the last moment, he swerved to sniff at my hindquarters. Hot breath between my legs....
I spun. Bared my teeth. Barked out a comment. Rude.
He backed off. Head cocked. Ears pinned. Ruff lowering.
It was as if we spoke two different languages. He’d said “Hi” in Polish, I’d chewed him out in Chinese.
And in that instant, I understood that this wasn’t a woelfin. This was one of the skinless. The strange were-beasts we steered so carefully clear of.
Because werewolves—their term for their kind—were animal-like in their social structure. They formed ungainly mobs rather than tight family groupings. One alpha led them rather than four co-parents.
In human terms, they were a dictatorship. I backed up a single step. Carefully. Slowly.
He came after me. Teeth nipped at my shoulder. Catching fur. Tugging skin.
It didn’t hurt. It tickled.
I skittered back another step.
Now the skinless was swirling around me like a dervish. How could a beast so large be so light on his feet? He tangled me up in my own body. Twisted around until we bumped hips and necks and shoulders, until I fell down on my rump in self-defense.
Only then, when I couldn’t take advantage of the lull to sprint for freedom, did he shed his pelts. Well, no, that wasn’t right. The skinless didn’t have pelts—that’s why we called them skinless.
Instead, one moment he was wolf. The next he was human.
Tall. Broad. And thoroughly familiar.
This were-beast—this werewolf—was no stranger.
The wolf who had waylaid me was Luke.
***
I RECOGNIZED HIM. BUT apparently my lupine form was impenetrable.
“Who are you?” Luke knelt beside me, as touchy-feely human as he had been lupine. His fingers rubbed behind my ears as if I was a pet pooch.
I wanted to snap at him...but the contact was blissful. I leaned into it. Felt my fur mat against his naked knee.
And the heavens opened. Rain fell in buckets. His skin was slick in seconds, yet I barely felt the droplets seeping into my fur.
Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled. I remembered my family and was suddenly drenched.
I stood. Shook myself. Now that was rudeness. Still, Luke didn’t retreat a single inch away from the furry spray.
“Shift,” he suggested, water dripping off his cheekbones. Water from the sky combined with water I’d pelted him with. But he didn’t complain. Just added: “I want to talk.”
I shook my head. No way. This guy was too deep in my life already for someone who lacked a twin. Plus, there were reasons upon reasons why woelfins steered clear of the skinless.
Top of the list? Whispers of what werewolves could do with woelfin pelts. Murmurs of swiped furs—just like those belonging to my family. Powers the skinless stole when they donned our skins.
Luke must have sensed my reservations, although he couldn’t guess the reason. Because he raised his voice to be heard above the water cascading down a nearby storm drain. “Are you shy?”
His nakedness was lost in the thunderstorm darkness. Mine would have been also. But I nodded, taking the easy out. Knowing he’d feel the movement of my head up against the side of his leg.
Because I’d pressed back up against him after shaking myself free of water. And he hadn’t twitched away from me. Instead, he knelt rock steady despite the fur that must now be plastering itchily against his skin.
“Hey, I get it.” Honey slid into Luke’s tone, just like it had when we three stood outside the Smythewhite residence. “It’s tough being a lone wolf. I don’t have a pack either. At least not yet.”
For a moment, we were united, even though a skinless’s pack was nothing like a woelfin’s family. Still, family was family. Mine was broken. His was absent.
But maybe Luke wasn’t feeling what I was feeling. Because he rose then, my muscles tensing into a bone-deep shiver the instant his leg lost contact.
Rain had chilled me while I wasn’t paying attention. Only Luke’s heat had maintained me.
That heat was gone now.
His fingers reached toward my ears again, and it felt like I was drawing close to a fire. Then the damp cold returned as the same hand withdrew without a touch.
“I’ll turn around,” Luke offered instead of further contact. “How about that?”
His eyes bored into mine. Human, he shouldn’t have been able to see in near darkness. I should have been the only one with animal senses. The ability to smell beyond my wet fur and peer through the stormy night....
But wasn’t that one of the strengths of the skinless? No pelt, so they maintained their wolfishness even while walking upright. Their human nostrils and eyes worked as well as those of a wolf.
“All I ask is your word that you’ll stay long enough to speak with me. On your honor?”
I winced, slapped by the unintentional reminder of the name I’d so unwisely chosen. I wanted to argue that my honor was no longer worth betting on.
But Luke was waiting for an answer...and he couldn’t know that I was a woelfin. So, slowly, I nodded.
Luke’s smile was like the sunrise. He turned around while the storm picked up speed all around us.
The roar of rain on rooftops covered the clatter of nails on pavement as I beat a hasty retreat.