Beneath the Skin (17 page)

I sat at the foot of the table, Murphy at the head. We were both in our pajamas and my hair was wet. He’d dimmed all the lights in the room so the candles were the brightest point of illumination. They cast dancing, circular shadows on the ceiling and made Murphy’s face look mysterious.

“Who?” He stared at me, fork loaded with steak arrested just before his mouth.

“That woman. That brunette one,” I clarified, but apparently not enough, because he set his fork down and gave me a quizzical look as he reached for his wine. He was obviously wondering whether I was about to throw a jealous hissy fit over some woman he might have glanced at in the Louvre and it was making him distinctly nervous.

I smiled maliciously. “The one you were with at the Great Hunt.”

He relaxed his tensed shoulders, but only slightly. “Some woman,” he said, clearly not sure whether we were going to have a fight, or even if he wanted to participate.

“Some woman? Did you even know her name?” I cried.

Irritation flashed across his face. “Of course I know her name, Constance. Sharo-- I mean Karen. Her name was Karen.” He’d had to search for it, and I rolled my eyes.

“You were contemplating bonding with this woman and you have trouble remembering if she was Sharon or Karen? Unreal, Murphy.”

“Contemplating...what the fuck?” He gaped at me, steak forgotten in his astonishment.

“Her name was Karen and I was not contemplating bonding with her.”

“What were you doing with her then?”

“I would think that was obvious, considering the circumstances. I was going to have sex with her, Constance.”

“What for?” I pressed and he continued to stare at me as if he weren’t sure what language I spoke.

“What for? What do you mean what for? It was the Great Hunt. You need to shift for the Great Hunt and I haven’t had sex for...a while now so I needed a partner.” He shook his head.

“Do you really need this explained to you?”

“Not really. I just wanted to know if you like shifting or not.” I drank some of my wine and reached for the bottle. It was good.

“I really like shifting. A lot.”

“Me too.” I nodded. “I miss it. One of the things I thought I’d get out of bonding again is the opportunity to shift.”

He sighed. “And you’re finding it very difficult to shift when we both sleep in separate bedrooms, is that it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Well, the thought had crossed my mind, I mean it couldn’t possibly be me, that’s there’s something wrong with me, so I figured you just didn’t like to shift. But now you say you do like to shift, so I’m confused, because I refuse to believe I am that repulsive you’d prefer not shifting to sleeping with me.”

“You want to shift? Is that it?” He shook his head.

“Eventually. At some point. Sooner rather than later.”

Murphy picked up his water glass and drained it. He set it down and grinned.

“Okay, let’s shift.” He pushed back his chair.

“Now?” My mouth dropped open a little and I closed it with a snap. I’d really wanted to have sex more than shift, but somehow that had been difficult for me to admit. Now I was trapped.

“You did say sooner rather than later didn’t you?”

“We’re in the middle of the city, Murphy. We can’t shift here.”

“We don’t have to shift the second we roll off of each other, Constance,” Murphy said.

“We have a car. We can drive to the countryside. It won’t take that long. You can hold off the shift for an hour or two, can’t you?”

“It’s been two years. I’m not sure what I can do anymore,” I muttered. I picked up my water glass and drank it all while Murphy stood and blew out the candles.

Before I lost my nerve, I wrapped my arms around his waist and kissed the back of his neck. He smelled like Armani cologne and red wine.

He turned around and pulled me roughly to him. His mouth crushed mine and I found out he could kiss spectacularly well.

I had on a bathrobe and a long t-shirt. He had me out of both in about four and a half seconds and I felt him hard against me as his mouth devoured mine.

But he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Ever. We somehow got to his bedroom--it was closer

than mine--and he got out of his clothes and joined me on the bed, but he wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

He kept his closed when he kissed me, then kept them fixed to other parts of my body but not my face when we weren’t kissing.

Once I tried to turn his face to mine, but he resisted my hand and so I gave up. I kept my own eyes closed and lay on my back with my face turned to the door.

After twenty minutes, I faked an orgasm just to make him stop and held him tightly as he came. I looked at his face then. His eyes were shut tight and I saw his lips move and I swear he mouthed her name. Sorcha.

Of course I thought of Grey too while we had sex. Mainly how much I missed him and

how different sex was when the person you were having it with didn’t love you.

I’d slept with Vaughn and Peter when I’d belonged to the Riverglow pack, but they did love me, as pack mates if nothing else, and we were good friends. They were my pack and we only slept with each other occasionally, like when the whole pack got together in the woods and shifted.

On the whole I thought I preferred separate bedrooms, after all.

I especially didn’t want to shift after that, but I couldn’t tell Murphy that. He was excited about it. I was the part to get over with before the real fun began. I’d always thought it was a more holistic experience, that the sex was just as enjoyable as the shift.

We didn’t talk in the car as we drove to the countryside. I pressed my forehead against the window and pretended an inordinate interest in the scenery, and who the hell knew what Murphy thought.

I debated whether I should tell him that my wolf was a little different than most, but then I figured he’d find out for himself.

This is what comes of wanting to get laid
, I thought with an inward sigh.

I didn’t know why I worried, I had nothing to be ashamed of and so I put the idea out of my head.

Little by little as the city melted behind us and there were trees and stars and rocks and dirt, I felt her stir inside me.

My wolf.

It started as a strange lightness in the pit of my belly that radiated outward and lit me on fire, only it was cold and purple dark. My mouth filled with the taste of the earth and my ears, fingers and toes tingled.

I ripped off my Chucks and threw them in the backseat and Murphy started to laugh. He took a hand off the wheel and reached out to touch me, but I managed to move my arm at the last second so his hand fell short. I tried to make it look natural, as if I turned to look out the window rather than avoid his touch, but I didn’t really care much either way.

My clothes felt tight, and while the fire inside was cold, I was hot on the outside. Burning up.

I shrugged off my jacket then sweater. It took me five miles, but I managed to wriggle out of my jeans too.

It was better in my underwear. I could take a deep breath.

“I don’t want to go too much farther,” I told him, and my voice was different. Lower pitched, sultry, wild.

He looked at me, gauging how close I was to losing control over whether I would shift and concluded I was on the edge.

When he pulled the car off the road, I was out the door before he’d turned off the

ignition.

“Wait for me,” he shouted, but fuck that, keep up if you could, asshole. Now he’d find out and I didn’t care. My wolf had been silent inside me for too long, and the remembered joy of her being welled up until I felt as if I might split in half from the sheer exhilaration.

I ran until my legs were a blur. I saw rocks and trees, and through the gaps in the branches, the stars.

My ears felt as if they were scorching off, and when I looked at my palms, they had hair.

Silver gray hair.

A grin of absolute delight nearly split my jaw in two and I threw back my head and

howled.

Murphy howled back. He seriously lagged behind, the pussy. But then nobody could keep up with me when I ran if I had a big enough head start. In wolf form, I was uncatchable.

I splashed through a small brook and the cold water shocked me so much I fell down and that did it. I ripped off my bra and panties with fingers that were more claws and let the shift sweep me under.

It hurts to shift. It’s not as bad as some of the movies project. My bones don’t crack and my spine doesn’t shorten--well, I suppose it does, but the shift is accomplished more on a meta level outside of this realm than here on the earth. It’s as if I blink out into somewhere else as a human and blink back in as a wolf.

Sure, some of the shift occurs on this plane. Some fur, fingernails turn to claws. It hurts, but before it really starts to become horrific, I blink out.

Coherent thought changes after the shift. It’s not so coherent. I forget my name but not who I am. Only I’m not who I am. I am Me. Wolf.

Him crunch. Smell! Smell dirt. Smell round thing from tree. Eat. Crunch. Friend! Smell Friend!

Play, Friend! Play! Run, Friend. Run, run, run, run.

Oh, tired. Oh, can’t run. Fall on grass. Smells good. Friend here. Friend warm. Friend
lick Me. Cold on my face. Friend has good breath. Lots of smells. But Me tired. Me tired, Friend.

Put head on Friend. Friend soft. Friend breathes. In. Out. In. Out.

Me want. Me want...something.

Me want.

Me cold. Me shiver. Friend warm. Friend hold Me. Fur gone. There is skin.

“Freezing.” I burrowed myself close against Murphy’s body. We lay on the grass. He was on his back, I was curled up against him, head on his chest. Our fingers were entwined and our hands were filthy. Covered with dirt.

“How the hell do you run so fast? Are you a cheetah or a wolf?” Murphy asked in an

exhausted voice. He sounded kind of pissed. He was cold but sweaty. We both were. My clothes were back in the car. I always hated the part of shifting back when I realized my clothes were back in the car. Because I was never near the car and it was almost always cold. And I was always exhausted.

“I’m exhausted,” I complained.

“Because you ran for I don’t know? A year? A month? Six hours? I don’t know. I can’t keep track of time when I shift. All I know is you never stopped.”

“I obviously stopped. We’re not running now.”

“You didn’t stop, you collapsed.”

“You kept up. I’m impressed.” I went on the offensive and wriggled closer to him. He was cold, but I was colder.

Suddenly I remembered.

“You growled at me,” I accused, going up on one elbow. It was on his stomach and that prevented him from answering right away. It also pretty effectively destroyed his desire to be anywhere near me, especially my elbows.

He got to his feet and headed back in the direction of the road. I rolled over on my stomach and was still for a moment. Crickets chirped in the bushes and above me the stars whirled in dizzying spray of glittering light. It was beautiful, but it didn’t matter. My wolf might be a little rambunctious and not as focused and well-mannered as most, but that was no reason for his wolf to have snarled at her.

Murphy belatedly realized I wasn’t following him and turned back.

“Are you coming?” he called, sounding impatient. It was too cold to be naked on the ground. Goose bumps pimpled my skin.

With a sigh I got up and walked toward him. He waited until I was beside him before he started to walk again.

“You didn’t have to growl at me.” My tone was haughty to indicate how offended I was and he grimaced.

“I’m sorry I growled at you.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry, and swore under his breath when he stepped on a rock. I nimbly avoided it and shivered as the wind picked up and blew my hair around my face until I was sure I resembled a witch. I felt like one.

“I don’t understand why you did it, Murphy.”

“I’m sorry I growled at you.” He sounded rather like a martyr, and that pissed me off, because I was the victim,

“You think I should just ignore the fact you bared your fangs at me?” I elevated my eyebrows and swiped hair out of my face.

“I’m sorry I growled at you.” He sounded like a CD with a scratch on it, constantly jumping back to the same lyric.

“You’re not,” I accused. We both shivered as the wind moaned through the trees, which showered us with dead leaves. What a goddamned gloomy night it was. His morose expression didn’t help anything. “It’s not nice to growl at people’s wolves.”

“I’m sorry I growled at you,” he shouted. His hands balled into fists, and I was both proud and guilty that I’d finally provoked him. Through the trees ahead, I saw the car. Murphy had led us straight to it. The Pack always have a great sense of direction. I can’t remember the last time I was ever lost. I might sometimes misjudge distances, but I always knew the way home.

“Why did you do it then?” I demanded.

“You weren’t my pack,” he said. Finally, a different answer, but this one really pissed me off. How dare he?

“Lame, Murphy. Lame answer,” I had my arms wrapped around myself and I made little

hops and jumps every few steps in the hopes that would stimulate my circulatory system and warm me the fuck up. “Just like it was lame to shift in middle of November when it’s freezing.”

“Doesn’t it get freezing in Boston?” he snapped. “And it’s not a lame answer, Constance.

Just because you act more like a dog than a wolf doesn’t make me a monster.”

“A dog?” I stopped dead at that insult. “A dog? First I’m a fucking cheetah, now I’m a dog? Just because I wanted to play with you since you were a friend? I knew your eyes. That made you a friend. And bond mates are sort of a pack, aren’t they?”

“You’re not in my pack,” he insisted, but his face was sad, or maybe that was the