3: Fera - Pack City (10 page)

Chapter Nine

Here’s the thing...It didn’t take long to exhaust ourselves, or to experience multiple orgasms. We ended up falling asleep in each other’s arms.

Which, by anyone’s standards, should be a good deal.

Except I didn’t sleep long. I totally panicked when I saw dawn slipping over the horizon. Not because of the change in him, but because I was afraid I wouldn’t change. Or I would.

I was confused. Scared. I crept away from Jack and sat a few feet from him, watching him. As the night receded and the morn broke, his features shifted. The fur disappeared completely. Not that he’d been covered by that much of it.

Revealed by the dawn’s light was a very handsome man. Dark, curly hair, not too short, not too long. Black lashes that fanned his cheeks in sleep. Beautiful lips. Kissable lips.

Pale skin.

Not sickly white. But definitely white.

I rested my chin on my knee and wondered, when will I turn back to lupus? And would that be painful? Even though I’d done well so far, I was sure that pain lurked in the next part of the shifting.

Examining my hands, I noted that the hairs were almost invisible and short, that my nails weren’t really claws. They were still long, but not vicious looking, as they’d been in crinos. That had me crawling back toward Jack, to look at the marks on his biceps. Healed wounds, red lines.

Tipping my head, I placed my hand in the air above them, matched them up--felt a little sad that I’d marked such an otherwise perfect body. Except, I noticed where he’d been bitten. On the back of his neck, like something had jumped him from behind.

I scooted back against a rock, wrapped my hands around my knees and wondered how he got loose. And who had done that to him?

One of the losers. The bitches had said that. But which one?

Not that it mattered. Losers were losers.

But still, I was curious. Not that I had any real urge to play detective, but I once again crawled close to Jack’s head and examined the bite marks. Scars, now, that included a second bite a few inches below the first. Apparently, Jack had been running, and kept on running. I looked at his legs. Strong legs.

They made me smile, and remember the way he’d tipped me backward, resting me on his thigh, before he’d kissed me. I ran my hand through my hair, scratched.

Then realized that I had gone human, full over. My hair curved around my cheeks, which were smooth, rounded, fleshy-feeling. I scrambled to my feet, and turned in circles, looking down at myself. Squiggled my toes in the grass, dug them into the dirt. I didn’t know what to think, couldn’t stop touching myself.

First, I squeezed my breasts, rubbed the nubs. I enjoyed that immensely, couldn’t wait to get Jack to do it, too. I had to pause for a minute though, because something in my brain was telling me that he had already, and that my recall wasn’t completely up to par.

No matter. This was the first time, in the light of day, that I could examine myself in human form. I delighted in running my hands up my arms. It was so different from when I was in crinos. No hair. My muscles didn’t bulge now. I was firm, but not--huge. Not that I have a problem with that. I think bigger is better, in men and women.

It didn’t take long for me to reach down between my legs, or to rub the soreness away with some light stroking. We’d had some hard sex, and it being my first time, had made me a little raw.

I went to the water and stepped in, slowly, quietly, so as not to wake Jack up. I washed. His dried semen was all over me, down my legs, over my belly. He had definitely ‘taken possession.’ I liked the aching feel between my legs. I liked knowing that Jack had wanted me repeatedly.

The creek was deep, the water cool and soothing, very refreshing. And the early sun was warming. I remember turning my face up toward it, closing my eyes, and thanking Gaia for the gift of a full shift. I lifted my hands, full of water, toward the sky, and let it fall in trickling waterfalls down my arms.

“So, this is what I have to wake up to now.”

Jack’s words had me blinking, twirling and covering my breasts as I spun around to look at him. I sputtered. “How--how long have you been awake?”

“Move your hands.”

I did, but I ducked into the water first.

Jack shook his head, planted a grin on his lips, and told me, “Stand up, let me see you.”

But I bit my lower lip. I hadn’t yet gotten
completely
comfortable with my new self, and I didn’t know how long it would last. I sure didn’t know how it stacked up in a human’s world, or a man’s eyes.

The sudden urge to explain that to him had me responding, “How much do you know about--garou?”

He frowned. “Garou?”

“You know, werewolves.”

“Oh.” He shrugged, looked away, bit the inside of his cheek. “Not as much as I need to know, that’s for damn sure.”

“There are some--simple things--that you need to know.”

He glanced back at me. “Like what? That the full moon turns them into monsters? Believe me, I got that part figured out.”

I flinched a little. What we’d shared, most of our night--we’d shared...in crinos. I felt a little confused on that. I mean, I remember that our embraces started while we were both in that form, but straddling him, I’d felt very--awkward. Very human formed. I asked, “Did you hate it?”

He considered that for several minutes, before he finally said, “No. Not exactly.”

“But you like being human better?”

“Don’t you?” he snapped at me. But there was no growl, or flash in his eyes.

Honestly, I said, “I--I don’t know.”

At this point, I realized that the unnaturals didn’t shift all the way to lupus. At least, this one hadn’t. Though his crinos had the best features of the wolf incorporated with the best of the human.

“How can you not know?”

He didn’t get it.

“What do you think, Jack? That we’re all bitten, like you were?”

Flinching, he got up off the ground, kept himself busy for a minute--brushing grass and dirt from his body. I watched him, thinking, Oh. My. Gaia. He is beautiful in every form. Well, the two forms I’d seen him in, and what was between them.

Even at that moment, when his male genitalia hung limply, it appeared worthy of appreciation. His human muscles, though much smaller than his crinos form, showed definition, dents worth investigating.

He asked, “By that, I take it that the entire pack wasn’t.” He really was too smart for his own good. Too clever. Getting information out of me.

“No.” I didn’t want to tell him the rest, but I said, “Some were. But more of the garou at Pack City are breeders, born werewolf.”

“Is that so?” He glanced over at me. “In what? Crinos?”

I winced. “Yeah, a few.” I knew one thing; birthing a crinos infant was as painful as it gets. I don’t know why, but it had something to do with claws, over-sizing of the baby, that sort of thing. “More in human or lupus.”

“How many are born like you?” His tone sharpened, and his gaze narrowed, and I felt like it was almost a criticism.

Swallowing hard, I tried to think. How many?

I wanted to please him. Call that the canus in me. “Not very many. Very few, in fact.” I tried to make it sound good to him. “It’s considered very--prestigious--to be born in lupus.”

“Why is that?”

“Hood says--” His chin came up a little, and made me feel a little defiant, like I needed to show a certain amount of pride. After all, if my brother said it, it must be true. He was well respected in the pack, and no one ever contradicted him when he talked about breeding. “...that the lupus-born are the pure line, the original ones, that they are becoming fewer and fewer--which makes them precious.”

That made Jack smile, but he didn’t ask who Hood was, if he was important to me, and he didn’t let me slack my end of the conversation. He pinpointed my discomfiture immediately. “So, what are you trying to tell me, Fera? That you’re a wolf?”

Certainly, he’d seen the pack in various stages as they’d chased and circled back. Some wolves, some crinos werewolves, some even in human form. Very few like that, but enough for him to get the picture. And, of course, he was looking at me, in totally human shift.

This was my first lover. I really didn’t want to disappoint him. I didn’t want him to reject me, now that the light of day had come. Now that his human senses had all returned. I had no idea how much of his wolf instincts were at his beck and call. Could he still smell, see and hear like a wolf?

So, I didn’t answer him. I just watched him, fear on my face. Sadness in my heart. A true sickness climbing through my belly, promising me that he would walk away and leave me in that strange land, naked, human, and unsure of which way to turn. I had such a feeling of bereftness that I couldn’t think.

But he came toward me, walked right into the water, reached out, took me by the shoulders and forced me to look him in the eye. He demanded, “Tell me.”

His fingers bit into my flesh, and I wanted to cry. I sniffed. Letting my gaze fall to his throat, I nodded. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

I closed my eyes, and said, “Born a wolf.” It killed me to say it. I had never wanted to deny my birthright before. But at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to have that untrue, to be able to say that I was human, had been bitten like he was.

Indecisively, we stood there, in the water, his gaze boring down on me. I think, maybe, he warred with all the things he’d been taught, about breeding, races, genetics. Perhaps his whole belief system was challenged at that moment. I know mine had been challenged in the short time we’d been together. I was now rethinking purism, and what, exactly, was unnatural, and what was not.