chapter 13
Alon woke in the forest and scented the air. The first rays of morning shot through the trees, bringing color back to his bleak world.
Hunger yawned and stretched in his empty belly. He ran through the woods, fast and fleet, bounding over the spongy ground beneath the trees. He had the scent of elk, and his hunger urged him on. One thing that he could not change about his existence was the hunger. The hungrier he grew, the harder it was to stay in his human form. Between his lust for Samantha and the knowledge of how she felt about him, he thought he might go mad. Now he was mad, raging down an animal path, knowing his prey was close. Knowing his quarry had no chance against him.
One, he told himself. He’d take only one. But upon seeing them he lost his mind, and when he came back to his senses he had broken the necks of two, a doe and a big buck. He started on the buck, ripping easily through the tough hide as a child might tear into a paper sack.
He devoured the thing, organs, viscera, meat and bone. He was about to crack open the skull when he saw something move. Something stupid. Something about to be dead. Not only was the urge to defend his kill nearly overwhelming, but he still felt the hunger. True, the impulse was now manageable, not the crazed gnawing want of a few moments ago. Now it was the greedy craving to binge. He needed the protein and fat if he was to stay strong to protect Samantha and if he was to stay strong enough to protect Samantha from himself.
Alon turned, claws raised, chest heaving, blood glistening on his face and hands and saw a familiar grizzly bear. The horror of her coming upon him while he ate nearly caused him to lose what he had put down.
“No,” he gurgled. “Samantha?”
She nodded.
“Go away,” he ordered, his voice harsh as the shame hardened cold inside him. How could he ever look at her again, now that she had seen him feeding on prey?
She shook her head and advanced on all fours, her nose raised as she breathed in the scent of his kill. What was she up to?
“Go away, I said,” he tried again, but his voice had lost its authority and now held a definite note of desperation. It was best that she saw this. He knew it. But his vanity pricked and his heart grieved for what he could never have. He realized that he had enjoyed her touches and those adoring glances she cast. But that was all he would have of her.
She’d never willingly touch him again. Not after seeing this.
She walked slowly forward and then past him, brushing his thigh with her furry shoulder, like a cat rubbing up against an owner’s leg.
Her touch had the same effect it always did. A prickling excitement began at the point of contact, tingled up and into his core, then, like a falling domino set off the next most obvious reaction.
Alon pressed his hands over his naked body, hiding the erection that lifted in her direction. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Samantha naked or that he didn’t want to be naked himself, but when he imagined this in his mind, she was not in her bear form and he was not covered with blood and bits of torn flesh and viscera.
The humiliation seemed to stick with the blood. She sidled past him, right to his second kill, and used the claws of one of her massive forearms to tear open the hide covering the doe’s shoulder.
He blinked in astonishment as she began to eat. No one but his sister had ever seen him feed, and he had never shared a kill with anyone until now. This privilege he did not afford even to Aldara, though they did hunt together. But Samantha was different, for he felt none of the familiar urges to defend his kill or the need to drive her away. Instead he was filled with a strange calm and pride at providing her with such a feast. He was not yet full, but still he wanted her to eat first. Some of his despair lifted.
She gave a huffing sound and then looked back at him, as if calling him to join her.
He did, approaching slowly. She allowed it. Somehow he thought that in most circumstances she would have chased off every challenger for this kill. Was this new territory for her, as well? He could not tell and, though he could ask her, she could not answer. Samantha sat gnawing away as if this were the most normal of all circumstances.
By slow degrees he became more comfortable beside her. Some faraway portion of his brain registered that this was how mates acted. The male offering his kill. The female accepting the tribute. Males of many species brought food to their mates in courtship. Was this their courtship?
Alon thought of the other reason for a male to bring food to his mate—when she raised their young. His stomach tightened and his heart ached at what he wanted so badly but could never have.
Children.
No. He would not bring more of his kind to a world where they were not wanted. He glanced at Samantha and felt his conviction weakening.
She needed him. But she did not want him. He heard her say so to Cesar. Why was the truth so hard to hear?
The ache in his chest spread until he could not breathe. His kind was too terrible. The earth would be better without them. The planet, in balance before their arrival, would recover more quickly once they had vanished back into the mist.
Samantha finished first, groaned and sidled back to one of the pines to scratch her back against the ridges of the trunk.
Alon was not full, but he was no longer weak from hunger. It seemed rude to eat without her, so he followed to where she rested beside the tree.
“You know I might have killed you,” he said, trying for a chastening tone. He hated the slur and gurgle of his words. “My kind does not share.”
She huffed and showed him her fangs.
“Will you change back?”
She shook her large head and patted her belly then groaned.
“Do you wish to return to my parents now?”
In answer she closed her eyes and then used a large paw to pull him against her warm, furry body.
Alon rested a clawed hand on her chest, stroking the thick, coarse fur. It was like snuggling up to a gigantic teddy bear. He hadn’t meant to sleep, but his full stomach and the buzzing of insects lulled him and he dropped, like a stone, into slumber.
When he woke, low gray clouds swept across the sky. A storm was coming. How much time had passed? He glanced about him, recalling himself to his surroundings.
Where was Samantha?
He sat up, alert now as he sensed for ghosts and found no trace of their clammy presence on his skin.
He rose to follow the clear highway of her scent. It led toward the water he heard burbling a little way off. Was she bathing?
Alon broke into a run.
He slowed when he neared the churning river that bounced between rocky banks over ghost-gray rocks and swirled in quiet eddies among boulders. The water shone the strange azure blue of all glacier-fed rivers and must have been as cold as the melting ice that created it.
Naked in her human form, Samantha stood calf-deep in quiet water between two massive rocks that wore green caps of lodge pole pines, their branches sweeping and dancing in the rising wind. She dipped her cape into the azure river.
Alon drank in the sight. No one had ever accepted him in his fighting form before. No one except his family had ever seen him eat. Yet Samantha had done both and with an easy grace that made it seem as if what she had done was nothing at all. Yet it was everything.
He didn’t know if she was blind or just crazy. What else could account for her holding him, nestling against him when he was so hideous?
His chest ached now and his throat felt raw, as if he had swallowed something scalding. Could she really not see him for what he was, or could she overlook it for the protection he provided?
“I may not have the gifts of a wolf,” she said, casually, as if speaking to her bearskin, “but I can smell well enough to know when I’m being spied on.”
She threw her bearskin cape over her shoulders, covering her form from shoulder to knee. The wind whipped her loose wet hair, lifting it in ropes.
He thought to change into his more human form, but seeing her nude had stirred the wanting again. The prospect of holding her in his arms scalded his skin and burned deep into his lungs and viscera.
He wanted to take her in every way a man takes a mate. But if he came to her naked and wanting, she might reject him. Rejection from Samantha was one defeat he could not bear. He knew it was impossible between them. But still he moved toward her.
He told himself that he needed her rejection. It was her only chance to escape him.
So he stepped out from cover still in his fighting form, walked to the water and waded in, quickly washing the blood from his body. Samantha slipped out of the water as he splashed in, but she did not go far enough. How could she sense his presence and not what he wanted from her?
“That was an excellent meal.” Her smile was generous and bright. “Thank you.”
She smoothed her cloak of glossy fur. There was a flash as if from a camera as her dark brown fur cape turned to a blur of pale purple.
She stood before him now, in a pretty lavender sundress that revealed her slim, muscular arms and hugged her lovely round breasts before cutting away to dance in the wind in waves of fabric about her cinnamon-brown legs. She was bare from midthigh to the straps of her wafer-thin sandals that crisscrossed her trim ankles. She had chosen this lovely vision for him. He felt a gratitude that struck bone deep.
I don’t want this. Not with him.
Her words bounced up in his mind, smashing against the enticement she now presented. What was she doing?
Her smile was welcoming. “I have something to ask you. A request, really.”
Her words confirmed his suspicion. This was why she offered herself in such a garment, to better her odds at getting what she wanted. He gave her another long look. Well, it was working.
She cocked her head. “Do you like it?”
“Very much.”
Her smile radiated pleasure. He tucked the sight of her away in his memory, to be drawn on later when she was gone. She swished her skirts and pivoted from side to side, giving him an ever-changing view.
His lips tugged upward into a smile that he knew must be hideous. The blood pulsed to his sex. He lowered his chin, fighting the urge to capture her. Would it be better to remain in his fighting form or change into his third form to stand before her naked and fully aroused?
She took a step in his direction, the pretty smile still on her raspberry-colored lips. “Your parents told me that you lead them, all the others.”
He nodded, apprehensive as to where this conversation was heading.
“And you told me that the Skinwalkers were no match for Nagi’s army.”
“Well?”
“We could be. If you all joined the alliance, we could win. And you’d be protecting the Balance and Mankind.” She held her smile, but it seemed forced. She waited for his response.
His eyes narrowed upon her as she confirmed his suspicions. This was why she sought him out. Not to hunt with him or share a meal or sleep at his side. It was to make this proposal. He shifted, resting his weight on his knuckles, resisting the urge to growl. Had he actually let himself believe she sought his company? That she longed for him as much as he did her? The shame crept through him like crystals of ice.
He had protected her, guarded her from harm, and all the while she was scheming. He would have defended her with his own life.
“I’ll bring you to them.” Her voice held a forced enthusiasm.
She couldn’t possibly be looking forward to introducing him to her family. But she was willing to do it for the cause. What else was she willing to do? How far would she go?
“I’ll take you to them privately. Blake first then my dad.”
“Privately.” Of course.
“Yes. And I’ll explain. They’ll want your help. I know it.”
“Have you already asked them?”
She glanced away. “Not yet.” Her gaze sought his again, and she placed one delicate hand on each of his hairy shoulders. “But I will.”
Her scent surrounded him. The prickling heat of her touch tingled over his skin. She slid her hands about his thick, hairy neck. Alon knew he could break free, but somehow he couldn’t. Her touch, her gaze, her heat all enthralled him.
When he spoke his voice held strain. “And what are you prepared to give me in return?”
Her hands slipped away. Her face registered surprise. Let’s see what she did with his counteroffer.
“What do you want?”
Her question hit him in the chest like a dart. Did she know what she was doing?
“I want you,” he whispered.
Her brow knit. “What?”
He summoned the energy, feeling it flash through him as he transformed into the lover she could accept. Her gaze flicked to his erection and her cheeks flushed.
Her ears pulled back and her eyes went cautious. She retreated a step. Too little too late, he thought.
The tension in her body and the scent of her blood pulsing through her told him she recognized danger.
“You don’t have to, Samantha. You can just walk away. I’ll understand. Your family would expect it. You’d be a fool not to.”
Then he scented something else. Samantha’s arousal came to him on the breeze as sweet and spicy as any exotic bloom.
Oh, no, he thought. No. No. No. Run, you little fool.
She seemed not to hear as she stared steadily at him. When she spoke, her words were a whisper, as if she spoke only to herself. “I have to know. This may be the only way.”
He didn’t understand her words and wondered briefly what she would know by lying with him. But he didn’t care. He’d accept any excuse, any feeble rationalization on her part as long as it allowed him to touch her again.
Alon stalked forward in the form he knew she could not resist.