S.C. Dane's Blog, page 9

Wolf-Love, Installment #17

Wolf-Love

Installment #17

    Was it fair to bask in the heat of the morning sun when all she could think of was Sol’s body bloating from the decaying gases?

    Ah, Christ.

    Just once she’d like to stuff her imagination into the dead brain cells she surely had. Thinking of her dog on the compost pile did nothing but knot her stomach and hold her hand while she merged onto Vomit Lane.

    Happy thoughts.

    Think of the good times.

    So she did. Immediately her stomach unclenched, but released the tears so they squeezed from between her closed lids. Really, she should get up, get oriented, get a game plan.

    Just yesterday, she’d walked away…Wait. Scratch that. She’d blasted her exit from the best job she’d ever had and there was no going back. Ever. The main reason being she still had the urge to off the girl, and sleeping on it hadn’t scratched that itch in the least.

    Sofia Smith, homicidal maniac.

    Now there was a job she wouldn’t mind having if she could get away with it. There were plenty of people she’d love to drill a bullet into. Or…

    Okay, shut up.

    Devising ways to off people was not exactly putting her in a healthy frame of mind. Or a clear one, which she needed if she was going to figure out what her next steps were. But first, she had to get her carcass up out of this comfy nest. Then she could head back toward civilization.

    She wasn’t stupid. She knew she needed money, and fairly fast, since all of her possessions, wallet included, were back at the farm.

    She’d find work on a fishing boat or something. Lie and tell potential employers she’d lost her i.d. If they pressed her, she’d leave and move on until she was wrapped tight enough to return for her stuff.

    With her new game plan to buoy her, Sofia finally opened her eyes to greet the day. She stretched her cramped muscles, yawned deep, and rested her sleep crusty eyes on the man who’d been following her the previous day.

    ”German.”

    He had his back against a tree and his forearms on his bent knees, so when he lifted his face to the sound of her voice, his green eyes were level with hers.

    ”Mornin’.”

    Nice. His greeting rasped across her skin, warming it like it always did.

    “You’re still here.” Obviously. Her skin prickled in a good way, she realized. Not that she’d let him know that. And his toothy smile was awfully comforting, in spite of the circumstances. She’d slept in the woods all night. Not alone, either, and that should’ve had her nerves squiggling mercilessly, but didn’t. What the hell was up with that?

    She’d just gotten too used to having Sol-Dog watch out for her. That was it, of course. She was getting lazy and sloppy. Then he spoke again and she caught herself listening. Expectantly.

    “I was worried about you. Not everyone is comfortable sleeping alone in the woods, you know.”

    That grin told her he was impressed. And pleased.

    ”How’d you know where to find me?” I was hidden, goddamn it. Unless, of course, he’d never left at all and had spied on her, had been watching her after he’d let her think he’d walked back to the farm.

    Shit. That was a problem no matter how much she liked his voice.

    His smile, too. Don’t forget his smile.

    Hell. Here she went again with her internal dialogue. Plus, she was assessing the physical cues instead of the vocal information—the lies. Except she didn’t think he was lying about being worried for her, and she wasn’t usually wrong about that.

    ”Well?” Sofia crossed her arms instead of getting her feet under her in case she had to run. Or shoot. Which reminded her of the weapon she’d tucked into her belt at the small of her back. While she put the pressure on her stare, she reached behind her. And felt nothing.

    In a flurry of dead leaves and scrambling legs, she had her shit-kickers planted and didn’t wait for his reply. “Where’s my gun, asshole?”

    So long smile. German’s eyes hardened on her own.

    ”I was thinking I was safer if you weren’t holding it.”

    Shit, with a capital S. “Why? I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

    ”Maybe not. But accidents happen.” He kept his position at the base of the tree, not offering to get to his feet to brace off against her.

    Sofia felt his eyes run along the length her body. Assessing. Holy, he was checking her out. Was he waiting to see what her next move would be?

    All right. She could work with that. This wasn’t the first hard spot she’d ever found herself in. If she played it cool, she’d get out of this intact. Well, maybe she might lose something, but she wasn’t ready to kill herself to keep her virginity.

    ”So. You have my gun. What else do you want?”

    Did he just cock his head like Sol did when she spoke baby-talk to him?

    ”What else do I want?”

    Yeah, he did, or he wouldn’t have repeated her question like a parrot.

    Sofia lifted her brows without bothering to reiterate.

    The bastard grinned, though. Like he enjoyed her question, her edge. Christ, was he a sociopath?

    ”Well, I want breakfast and would like it if you joined me.”

    ”You want me to join you for breakfast?” Damn, the parrot-thing was catching.

    ”Yeah, Sofia. I want to have breakfast with you. If that’s okay?” The sincerity of needing her answer to be yes had her teeth snapping onto her tongue. His body was too relaxed to be hiding something. There was no twitch or itch, which were always dead give-aways.

    The growling of her stomach answered in the affirmative, and German unfolded and stood up.

    Criminy, he was taller than she remembered. Or maybe it was just that she was feeling vulnerable out in the woods alone with him.

    ”Excellent.” Unexpectedly, he stepped away from her and walked toward the rising sun. “There’s gotta be a place east of here, right?” He tossed his question over his receding shoulder. Which, she had to notice because she was surely losing her mind, were wider than his narrow hips, making his old flannel shirt look like a Calvin Klein garment.

    Great. This is nuts. I’m nuts. As soon as he’s not looking, I’m out of here, with or without the .22.

    Her growling stomach insisted on her stalker’s original plan.

    ~S.C. Dane

    ~Installment #18 coming January 11, 2014.

Wolf-Love, Installment #16

Wolf-Love

Installment # 16

    Now what was she going to do? She’d hiked for what felt like half a century hoping the guy would bail. But noooo. He’d stuck around, not giving her a chance to be alone, to grieve for the loss of her dog.

    The instant her thoughts turned to Sol-Dog, Sofia’s heart seized and a fist squished her throat.

    Not now. Not in front of anyone. She willed her tears back with a sharp thrust of anger.

    ”Right. So why don’t you? Leave.”

    For a second, she thought she’d seen a flash of communion in German’s green eyes, like he knew something of her pain.

    Yeah, right. Like he gets how it feels to kill your best friend.

    Shit. She was going to cry if she kept thinking about what she’d done, could feel the sting behind her eyes, and was warily surprised to see him turn away and start walking back the way they’d just traveled, as if he could tell she was about to lose it.

    Just in time, too, because the tears found their inevitable path down her cheeks. Absorbed in her misery, she stared at the blurry ground at her feet instead of watching the man leave. When she finally rubbed at her face and looked up, he was gone.

    But she didn’t like the loneliness his absence made. Suddenly, the forest seemed too big and her grief made her feel too tiny, too vulnerable, too much like a turtle without its shell. The sighing of the wind in the high boughs whispered loss.

    Solly.

    She didn’t even have her Sol-Dog to ward off the insecurities that plagued her at times like these. Before, she’d never worried about where she slept when her giant mutt was with her. She just laid her head on the dog’s broad side, curled up to his furry warmth, and slept easy knowing she had someone looking out for her. A first in her long history as a ward of the state.

    Now she had no one. Again.

    Yet she wouldn’t go back to the farm, not a chance in Hell. If her eyes had to suffer the images of the people she’d left? She’d use her pistol again, sure as shit, and the first one to eat a .22 bullet would be the bitch who had taunted her dog in the first place.

    She knew that now. Without her best friend to ground her and give her purpose, she felt unmoored—adrift in a sea of people she just couldn’t comprehend. Sofia would murder that girl as surely as she felt the pistol’s cold hardness in the small of her back.

    Her feet almost betrayed her, leading her back the way she’d come.

    Uh-uh, Sofe. Don’t even go there.

    Killing a dog was one thing, but to shoot a human-being? The cops would have her sent so far up the proverbial river she’d forget what a canoe looked like. Institution was her enemy. It had kept her locked up enough, had dictated how she’d lived, where she went, and why. She’d be damned if she’d let herself wind up as a ward of the good ol’ state of Maine again.

    Fuck that. She’d paid for her freedom already and it had taken her most of her young life to do it. The chill of suppressed memories raked across her skin and she shivered. Hell, no way would she find her ass behind bars again. Juvie-hall had been bad enough. The lock down had stabbed claustrophobic fear straight into her guts and she’d suffered for her reaction. They had locked her down tighter. Which, of course, did as much good as pouring salt on an open wound: it knocked out possible infection but left one bitch of a scar.

    Yeah, she was so not able to go to prison.

    She’d sleep right here where her feet were. Except this night she was going to have to be vigilant because she didn’t have her extra set of eyes and ears. Or a thunderous growl and inch long fangs to warn others off. At least she was in the middle of the woods where people weren’t going to find her.

    Not even that guy German if she hid herself well. Screw the wildlife—it was those of the two-legged variety she worried about most.

    Seeing nothing but the gray and white barked trunks of birches and spruce trees, Sofia slid off into the heavier brushed copse of spruces to her left where she’d be better camouflaged. Dusk was quickly losing pace with full out sundown and her flesh was near revolting against her spirit.

    She found a welcoming depression at the base of a shaggy spruce whose heavily feathered limbs nearly touched the ground. Sofia nestled into it, curled up, and promptly dropped into a sleep so heavy she could have been mistaken for dead herself.

∞

    German knew she wasn’t dead, even though her body lined the little dip she was hidden in like melted chocolate on a spoon. Christ, she was out. It was a good thing she’d chosen such a good hiding spot because, damn, she was so asleep as to be practically comatose.

    He shifted his feet just enough to flex the blood in his bent knees. Yeah, she’d found a good hidey-hole. If he didn’t have the advantage of an exceptional sense of smell, he’d have never found her. Which meant anyone looking for her from the farm wouldn’t find her.

    Besides, he assured himself, they wouldn’t look until daylight. Humans never went searching after dark. Lucky for him on too many occasions to bother counting. And since there were no other wolves out looking for her, he could let her sleep and get rested up.

    Her brain was obviously stealing some much needed vacation time, and she was going to need the recharge come morning.

    Because he was going to be sitting right where he was now, waiting for her when she opened those gray eyes of hers, and she wasn’t going to be happy about it. Somehow, while she would be thinking up ways to eviscerate him, he was going to have to persuade her to drive to Minnesota with him.

    Yeah, that was going to go well. She couldn’t even tolerate his presence in ten thousand acres of forest, how was he going to convince her to shut herself into the small compartment of a goddamned car? For hours on end. While they drove half way across the country.

    Giving up on her though, wasn’t an option. Never mind the tug in his guts he felt when she was near. The whole sentencing thing with the Alphas was a straight up kick in the ass, and the toe of that solid boot had found his balls.

    German rubbed his puss, and stared up at the dark canopy overhead.

    He was going to betray this woman to save his own pelt. What a great guy he was. A real noble wolf. No matter how certain he was that Sofia was going to flip out when the Alphas shortened her leash, he was still going to hand her over to them.

    What a frigging cesspool. Finally, he gets a rogue who isn’t one of the dregs of the barrel, and he’s going to betray her beautiful red fur. Dearest Luna, she was going to be gorgeous as wolf. Confident. Decisive. Dominant.

    Shit. He couldn’t think about it. It was her ass, or his. Plain and simple.

    So why was his spine burning like a flaming, fucking sword?

    He let the familiar searing have its due and welcomed the shifting of his body like a warm embrace.

    Wolf.

    He’d hunt to regain his focus. Running always helped. As did the end of the chase when he could crush his jaws into flesh and surrender himself to the satisfaction of an honorable kill.

    German turned on his four paws, padded softly into the beckoning woods, and skimmed his muzzle along the forest floor.

    The woman and his problems were going to have to wait.

    Hell, he thought as his heart picked up pace with his working muscles, putting things off for just a little while would be doing everyone involved a favor.

    Except the Alphas.

    And that was just fine by him.

    ~S.C. Dane

    Installment #17 coming soon.

Wolf-Love, Installment #15

Wolf-Love

Installment #15 

    Sofia kept the gun, because it was the only thing tangible she had connecting her to her one and only friend.

    There sure wasn’t anything back at the farm, and what few possessions she’d left were easily replaced. Meaning, no family heirlooms had ever landed in her lap.

    Especially since she’d never been adopted or kept in one foster home long enough for loving relationships to bloom. And those who’d taken her in sure as hell were not going to give her anything they’d deemed valuable. As it was, they’d always regretted opening their homes to her in the first place.

    So really, where the hell was she running to now?

    Her feet slogged into a reluctant halt. She had nothing except her ties to her dog.

    Sol. Dead Sol. Shot in the head Sol.

    Waitress, could we have another crying jag over here? Swear to God, she loved to torture herself, because she was turning around in spite of every cell in her body screaming at her to run. Far. As in, what the fuck are you doing turning back?

    “Hey.”

    The voice was one she knew. Hadn’t heard it much, but the few times she had the damn thing resonated. Sang across her skin like sunshine. Not that she’d admit it, especially to the person standing at the edge of the woods panting like he’d just run after her.

    No. That wasn’t right. Because he was ahead of her, not behind.

    Strange, even by her standards. For some reason, she thought about the way he’d lunged at Charlie: teeth first.

    So she snapped at him as her skin cooled when his greeting faded into the trees.

    ”What do you want?” She nailed him with her usual get lost glare.

    ”I…”

    ”Rhetorical, buddy. Go away.” She didn’t wait for him to move, but left for him—heeded the call of her cells and walked away from the farm.

    Except he tagged along. He kept his distance, but he was still following.

    In a huff, Sofia spun around.

    ”Are you deaf?”

    ”Rhetorical again, right?” He smiled, revealing a row of strong, pearly whites. But he kept his eyes down, and his shoulders soft.

    Sofia’s brain meandered like a little lamb in a lush, spring pasture. It paused to nibble at the memory of those eyes. They were green as the forest she was in. Green like grass. Like spring leaves on… Shit. What was she doing? Just because he acted all non-threatening didn’t mean he was. And why am I having this conversation in my head?

    Jesus-fuck, she had to learn how to quit looking at people like they spoke two languages. It got her in trouble because she was supposed to believe the lies pouring out of their mouths, not figure out what they were really saying with their bodies.

    Like she needed to be having the inner dialogue right now? She clipped off her current thoughts like a ruthless samurai, and turned her metaphorical blade on her stalker. “I said leave me alone.”

    ”I just thought you might like a little company, given what…you know…how bad things are right now.”

    There was that voice again, sliding like cashmere across her skin. Sofia put her boots back onto the forward trail, and ignored her intruder. She had to—it wasn’t like he was getting the hint. If she kept walking, eventually he’d give up on her, go back to the farm. Chore time couldn’t be that far off, she reasoned, and milking cows didn’t wait.

∞

    She had no intentions of stopping, German figured after they’d traipsed through the woods for a few miles. But every step lifted his heart and his hopes. She wasn’t going back, at least not yet. And that boded well for his mission.

    Plus, she never headed for the main road. Not once. Not even when the trail petered out. She opted to stay hidden in the forest.

    This was too good to be true. He never had this kind of luck when dealing with rogues. Somehow, he had to ease her through things. Hell, she deserved it, given that she’d just shot and killed the one creature who’d probably had the most affinity with her ever.

    He’d been on Charlie’s farm long enough to see that. Christ, the big mutt went…ah, had gone everywhere with Sofia. If you saw one, you knew the other wasn’t far. How in hell was she coping with the fact she’d killed her truest companion?

    Dearest Luna, he was out of his depths here. If she could kill her best friend, she could kill anything. Or anyone. Besides, the chick hadn’t ditched the pistol. She had that souvenir cinched into her belt at the small of her back. Which made him think of his scar and the close call with Charlie. He hadn’t been that out of control in the heat of a fight since…well, since he’d been given his scar.

    The poor dog. He was like German had been when he’d been a kid and had attacked the human boy: driven by instinct. Like Sol, it had taken someone stronger to snap the fixation on the fight. Unfortunately for the dog, the rules were different. He got a bullet, where young German had been whipped then purposely mutilated.

    His reminder to obey Wolf law. No matter what.

    Oh, yeah, he’d never forgotten. Or forgiven.

    ”You’re not going away.”

    German halted with his legs spread, and his feet glued to both impressions on the forest floor.

    Shit. He had to quit losing track of this woman. Both physically and mentally. At least, this time the gun wasn’t in her hand.

    ”Yeah, well. Like I was saying, I thought…”

    ”Don’t think. Go.”

    German shook his head and looked up into one hell of a set of hard, gray peepers, and resisted the shiver tweaking up his spine.

    But he noticed the tight skin around those eyes. Sofia’s strength was flagging. And why wouldn’t it? Her day had been packed fuller than a hypochondriac’s medical file. But she was obviously pushing through it and trying like hell to hide the fact she was exhausted.

    Soften your shoulders, idiot.

    German relaxed his stance even more, and averted his eyes. As soon as he did, she softened, too, giving in to her fatigue. A little.

    ”Look. You’ve had one hell of a day and I’m not suggesting we go back, either. But you need rest, and I’m thinking out here in the middle of nowhere isn’t the place.”

    It was for him, but she didn’t need to know that. Yet.

    In fact, if he handled this right, she would be thinking the woods were the perfect place to rest up, too. Not that he was going to start serving up helpings of no-effing-way. She’d had enough for one day, and telling someone they weren’t really human or shifting into wolf in front of them would be as smart as slapping a rhino with a newspaper. Wasn’t happening.

    Even though time was critical, he couldn’t force the truth on her. But, if he could get her to bend a little in his favor…

    ”If you would let me, I’d be happy to front for a night at the nearest motel.”

    Man, but those eyes could level.

    ”No strings.” German held his palm up like his other hand rested on a Bible.

    ”No.”

    Dearest Luna, she is such a hard-ass. So why was he trying not to smile? It certainly wasn’t because he liked her backbone.

Or admired it. Or was fighting himself from laying…

    ”Here is fine.”

    Well, wasn’t that just a scrumptious morsel? The inner smile that had been blazing up to his eyeballs exploded onto his face. He probably looked like a leering psychopath, and in about two seconds was going to scare her away from what was coming naturally to her.

    Play it casual, idiot. “Ah, sure.” He glanced around him like her suggestion was a tad off the wall.

    ”If you don’t like it…”

    ”I know. I can leave.”

    She didn’t even scratch half a smile.

~S.C. Dane

~Installment #16 coming January 4, 2014 Happy New Year!

Wolf-Love, Installment #14

Wolf-Love

Installment #14

    Sol-Dog dead.

    Sofia tried hugging his lifeless body, but it lolled around with his nose as the pivot point, his big head weighing heavy on the end of his rubbery neck. Even with the dead weight as evidence, she kept thinking maybe he was still alive, maybe she’d felt his heart thump under her hand.

    A lie, of course. The cloudiness of his eyes told her he was gone; there was no keen vigilance shining from under those shaggy brows. Although she buried her face into his ruff just the same, sobbing his name. Her apologies.

    They came out as a smearing litany, her betrayal riding upon strings of snot. She cried for the ugly path of their lives, cursing the people in it, so when Charlie lay his hand upon her shoulder she twisted upright, the .22 somehow finding its home snug against her palm.

    She raised it straight at the farmer’s face. “Back off,” she snarled, her molars locked like they’d been when she’d squeezed the trigger the first time.

    Charlie’s hands flipped up, palms forward like they were little, bulletproof shields. Sofia paid no attention to the words coming out of his awful mouth, but he was talking like he did when his giant draft horses spooked under harness.

    ”Back off!”

    She might have been losing it but her hand was snake steady. Since his horses didn’t carry guns and she did, Charlie grew a sense of self-preservation and did what she said. He left her alone with her dog. Along with everybody else. While she’d been floundering in the sea of tar her life had turned into, the crowd had moved inside.

    Once she was alone she crumpled back to the ground with Sol, hauling his heavy chest onto her lap. He was still warm, pliable. Floppy. She stayed with him until the body cooled, until she was sure he was never coming back, that the bullet had found its true arc. She never noticed the curious faces peering out of the farmhouse windows; nor did she wonder how the beat up Ford had gotten so close.

    Sofia moved by impulse because there wasn’t anything else in her. No heart, no head, no… nothing. Just the gaping hole expanding around her feet as her frustration swelled because she couldn’t lift her giant pup into the bed of the pick-up by herself.

    She didn’t bother to notice, either, who gently lifted the wolf-hound’s lifeless flank and nestled it on the rusting bed. Christ, she could barely step around the spreading hole to find the driver’s side door. She sure as hell couldn’t recall driving to the Pit—the place where all dead animals wound up to decompose or get picked over by the crows and eagles.

    The dog’s soul was gone so it didn’t matter if the carcass rotted on the heap. What the dog had

been was long gone. Blown to smithereens by a .22 bullet.

    Sofia pulled her friend out, grasping hard to the massive weight as gravity sucked the dog to the ground, as though the earth already claimed what was rightfully its own. She dragged him closer to the pile.

    Her eulogy? A stream of vomit splashing on weathered bones.

    When her homage to Death finally quit its spasms, she stiffened her shaking legs, wiped her mouth on the back of her forearm, and walked away. From everything. The truck, the farm, the people. Her few possessions.

    She did not look back. Because already the crows were squawking Sol’s arrival and she had nothing left to stomach the horror.

∞

    Waiting for Sofia to come back with the Ford got old within about two minutes of its departure.

    The gnawing in his guts hadn’t stopped churning since he’d played shadow at the back of the farmhouse, and German knew not to ignore it. Example? The fuck-show that had just demolished center stage.

    He heeded his instincts and snuck off toward the woods abutting the sprawling hayfield.

    The woman wasn’t coming back, which meant she might be salvageable, after all.     Damned if he knew how to go about it, though. Sofia had been twitchy before, but now? She was a suspended tornado: which direction was she going to lay to waste? The abyss in her eyes meant she could tip to either side. If he wanted to influence her so she’d survive shifting into wolf, he’d have to handle her like she was nitroglycerin.

    Like he wasn’t being careful before?

    Shit. He’d been winging it before she’d shot her dog, now he was utterly frigging clueless. The Alphas, when they’d sent him on this mission, hadn’t been any help, either. They were hoping he’d fail.

    He wasn’t about to give them that satisfaction.

    To save my own ass. Right. And if he kept repeating it to himself, eventually he’d believe the little diddy, maybe even scuff out a little soft shoe. Meanwhile, as he stood there letting his thoughts tap dance over to why he was stuck in the nether regions of Maine to begin with, Sofia was driving a truck farther and farther away from him.

    German jutted his nose to the west and snuffled with shallow breaths to catch the taste of decay upon his tongue, the hint of…

    Goddamned gasoline.

    He never got used to the smell of automobiles. The shit they exhausted was toxic and the old Ford Sofia was driving coughed like a smokestack on four wheels. Never mind that he’d been the one to round it up for her to help her with the dog.

    What mattered was the widening cavern in his guts. He struck off toward the rot wafting on the wind and hoped like hell the rogue had fled on foot, because he’d only be able to chase the truck so far before he’d lose the trail.

    He was just a wolf, after all, not a frigging super-hero.

    ~S.C. Dane

    Installment #15 coming soon.

Wolf-Love, Installment #13

Wolf-Love

Installment #13

          German had watched the whole fuck show go down. Saw why the big dog attacked the girl in the first place. Christ, he’d almost attacked her, and he considered himself to be under fairly tight control around humans. He’d learned at an early age they did shit that just triggered the kill instinct.

Like taunting a big dog and then panicking and falling down while they screamed like wounded animals. Which is precisely what the girl had done. She should’ve been counting herself lucky the mutt didn’t do more than bite her. Once. All the snarling and shit was what a subordinate dog did: it made a lot of noise to scare, but that was about all.

But most humans wouldn’t notice that. They’d see a small girl getting mauled by a savage animal, to hell with the finer details. Sol was guilty. End of discussion. End of thinking.

There would be no rationalizing. Not with the murderous expression clapped to Charlie’s face. German had seen the look on human faces too many times not to grasp the concrete intent. The dog was as good as dead, because that’s how humans handled shit like this. The animal always lost. Always.

It had taken every scrap of his self-control not to knock the farmer down into the dirt where he belonged. Under him. German had been furious enough to throw his caution aside, his blood heating to dominate.

Which was why he was now leaning against the back of the house, sucking in air like it was free for a limited time only. He needed to settle the fuck down. As it was, he wasn’t sure if his fangs had been bared when he’d snapped at the man’s hand.

Loving Luna, it had been a close call.

Still was if he couldn’t get himself calmed down. Sofia was still out there dealing with the chaos, and he didn’t have a frigging clue how she was going to react to this. Defend her dog to the death?

If she wouldn’t actually get killed doing it, he’d be awfully pleased she’d go that far. Especially since it would mean she wasn’t attached to the human world very tight at all. If she would choose the four-legged over the two when it came down to it?

The notion washed through him like a sunbeam, relaxing his rigid muscles so his chest could start holding the oxygen his lungs were yanking in.

Sofia somehow managing to nourish her wolf despite living with humans was just the thing to pull German’s head out of his ass. She needed help, someone who would stand with her defending her dog. Not hiding behind a house in fear.

He could curb his own wolf, and didn’t need the scar across his lower back to remind himself to do it. He’d proudly stand with the red-headed woman if she was going to fight. Which wasn’t something he’d ever done before, or had ever had an inclination to do. He wasn’t rogue, but he sure as hell wasn’t tied to any pack in a way it mattered.

Like now.

German went quiet, struck half dumb with the truth of his feelings. But everything else was quiet, too. There wasn’t any shouting, no sounds of a fight coming from the front of the house. It was eerie. Like the proverbial calm before the storm, the bated breath, maybe?

Except his skin was tingling like a motherfucker, making him rub his arms as his human hair bristled. Oh shit.

It meant one thing: nothing good was about to happen.

He shoved his back off the side of the house and bolted for the front farmyard, where the dogfight had taken place. Where Sofia and Sol would be.

The dog was with Charlie, and Sofia was striding toward them. He didn’t miss the pistol in her hand, or the determined set of her jaw.

Fuck.

By the time he was halfway across the shit-mined yard, she’d already pulled the trigger.

“Fuuuck!”

German scraped to a skidding halt while his eyes locked onto the mess in front of him, his heart spiraling into his boots, dragging his breath right along with it.

She’d shot her dog. Dearest Luna, she shot her fucking dog.

And had most likely sunk too far now into the humans’ world that he wouldn’t be able to rescue her from it.

     ~S.C. Dane

       Installment #14 coming Saturday, December 28, 2013.

Wolf-Love, Installment #12

Wolf-Love

Installment #12

    The eruption of screams and snarling launched Sofia’s heart into her throat. She dropped her pitchfork and bolted from the barn, blindly running straight for the attack as if she already knew the damage without having to see.

    Oh, fuck. She wished she didn’t have to see. The bird-girl from the kitchen was on the ground, slapping frantically and shrieking as Sol smothered her with his huge body, his head jabbing down, rearing back, jabbing down again as he lunged to bite over and over, the girl’s screams pitching him into a frenzy. Dirt clods and dust spit up around them, as if someone was shooting the ground around their feet. The blue bowl from the kitchen lay tipped on its side, the surreal debris of a world upended.

    The wolfhound mutt was fast. So nightmarishly fast.

    No matter how the girl twisted and writhed, he was there. Battling to subdue her, as if the human girl was another dog who wouldn’t submit.

    Shouting exploded into the morning air as the front porch spewed its occupants. The new guy got to the fight before anyone else and dove head first into it. The force of his hit knocked Sol off his feet so they both tumbled away from the shrieking girl.

    They righted themselves with wild agility, their feet digging into the earth. Sol coiled and sprung, and German braced his legs wide, catching the huge body chest to chest. Gripping hard with his arms, in a feat of strength he surged up and flipped, whipping his legs around and driving the big dog into the ground while he landed on top.

    Snarling rent the morning air as the dogfight continued, as though it were two animals growling, not one. The roar was cut off as German buried his face under the dog’s chin, his hands quick to lock on the dog’s throat.

    Sol-Dog melted into submission, panting heavily, his eyes rolling.

    Sofia focused on that spectacle, not the shouting crowd gathering to help the girl.

    Charlie strode into the pile of German and Sol, latching on to the dog’s scruff and yanking him to his feet.

    Like an animal himself, the new guy snapped at the other man, as if to keep him from intruding. But then, just as quick, as though he was repulsed by what he’d done, German skittered backwards, and bolted for the far corner of the farmhouse, away from the chaos.

    Her attention riveted back onto her dog and the other man now in control. With his fingers clamped and digging into Sol’s ruff, Charlie hit Sofia with a murderous scowl. There was no understanding in that glower. No forgiveness in the hard lines etched into his stern face.

     Her dog tried cowering to the ground but could only go as far as Charlie’s arm allowed, his deep chest still a foot off the ground.

    Sofia’s throat knotted, twisting tears up until her vision blurred. She knew. In her crushed heart she knew. There would be no explanations. No apologies.

    Sol-Dog had committed an inexcusable crime.

    All because of a stupid girl—a panicking waste of flesh and blood.

    By some silent acknowledgment, Charlie said nothing as Sofia backed away.

    He would leave the inevitable up to her.

    She returned a lifetime later, thirty seconds in a dead sea of her future life. As real as the .22 pistol in her sweaty grip, Sofia felt the fraying of the mooring lines holding her, knew that when the bullet ripped out of that chamber her life would be shredded, too.

    Two shits was what her future was worth to her. But what filled her with terror was the fact she was about to kill her best friend. The one creature who’d utterly stuck by her, no matter where she went or what she did. They’d gone hungry together, slept like spoons in a drawer in junk cars, and not once did that dog’s loyalty flag.

    Neither had hers. When she ate, her dog got half. When she found a warm, dry place to sleep, it had to accommodate the large wolfhound cross, too. It was Sofia’s promise to the mutt when she’d adopted him as a puppy.

    She would always protect him, no matter what. A promise she’d held to a hell of a lot better than any of her foster parents had.

    Sofia just never imagined the no matter what meant having to kill the only living thing she’d ever counted as family. But she’d be fucked if she was going to let anyone else do it. Her best friend would die with dignity and without suffering. And the only way to pull that off was to do the deed herself.

     Sofia took stock of the people crowded around the bleeding, sobbing girl: the one responsible for what she was about to do. They stood around with pale faces, talking in fractured sentences as they pieced together what had happened. Real smart folk, they were. Sharp. The fucking idiots couldn’t use their own brains to finish their thoughts?

    It was not her dog’s fault. The girl had it coming. Had practically begged for it, really.

    Which changed nothing. Because in the human world, a mere dog wasn’t allowed to bite people no matter how valid the reasons were behind it.

    Sofia hitched a staggeringly deep breath and stepped toward Charlie and Sol-Dog, who stood at the end of a shrunken tunnel of her vision, like she was looking at them out of the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

    Fuck.

    She wasn’t sure she could do this.

    What she figured she could do was aim that two-ton weapon she carried in her sweating fist at every staring face around her and squeeze the trigger. Hell, she knew it wouldn’t hurt half as much as what she was about to do.

    Sofia’s throat twisted up on her like a dishrag, all the liquid wringing out of her eyes.

    Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.

    She willed octane into her leg muscles. Moved stiffly toward Charlie and her dog. Positioning the muzzle of the .22 in the nook of rounded cartilage of his softly furred ear and the hard bone of his skull, Sofia pulled the trigger.

    The dog dropped over his long legs and face-planted into the grass under his paws. Dead.

    Sofia collapsed with him, dead in every way except the one doctors said made a difference. Her heart still clunked spasmodically against her sternum, railing for the oxygen that wasn’t coming because she’d stopped breathing.

    She’d stopped.

    Just stopped.

    Until the moan in her guts mushroomed to such a painful size her head fell back and the lament distended into one long, lung shredding shriek that spewed her soul at the sky. Her grief showered around the farmyard and settled on the manure and all the shit that had been her life.

    The witnesses left her alone with the carcass of her dog.

    ~S.C. Dane

    Installment #13 coming soon.

Wolf-Love, Installment #11

Wolf-Love

Installment #11

     After washing the milking equipment and mopping the milkroom floor, Sofia’s belly was growling like a beast had taken up residence under her t-shirt. It was starving for breakfast, letting anyone within hearing distance know about it. Good thing she was alone. The less people knew about her the better–even for such a small thing as being hungry. With a quick check out the window to see Sol doing his own morning routine of lifting his leg to every outside corner of the barn, she headed into the kitchen.

    The murmur of voices hit her like a padded wall, solid but easy on the senses. She preferred the mornings in the dining room, where everyone was more subdued, the hush of the sleepy house still clinging to the interior. Even the screech of silverware to plates seemed less harsh, the greasy odor of bacon hanging heavy.

    But tantalizing.

    Aaaand speak of enticing things, there sat the new guy at the back corner of the table, looking like his eggs had been dropped on the floor then scooped back onto his plate. Until he lifted his eyes—eyes green and shimmering, like twin raindrops on a pair of sunlit leaves. He’d drawn his lids up slow, pinning her with a penetrating stare.

    Yet, there was nothing antagonizing about it. That emotion couldn’t have been further removed if it hibernated in Alaska, on the opposite side of the country. Instead, that bottle green gaze warmed her like a summer morning, liquefying her bones. The man blinked once, slow as he did when he’d lifted his lids to reveal those eyes. His lips quirked on one corner. A silent—and intimate—greeting.

    Sofia stood by the sideboard, her hunger for breakfast chugging down the tracks away from her. God, his eyes. They revealed everything, enhancing the curl of his broad frame, which was bent around his taut stomach like he protected himself. He hadn’t been pleased to be sitting where he was.

    Until he’d looked up at her.

    Then his body had squared up, intensifying. His previous posture of enduring? Abandoned. Yet, he remained rigid after the initial arousal, as though he waited for her to make the next move.

    Her hand acted first, groping like the eyeless thing it was for the stack of plates on the sideboard. Her fingertips patted glazed ceramic, registering the goal, but her brain was dislocated. Her mind received the information, it just refused to do anything about it.

    Which was stupid. On too many levels. Especially when she was acting like the man got to her, and that was just…well, dangerous. Nobody needed to know what she was thinking. Or not thinking, in this case.

    Sofia turned on the ball of her foot like a hasty ballerina and gripped a plate like it meant to play tug o’war with her.

    Stupid. Again. Easing her grip, she headed down the small buffet, filling her plate with her usual fare before escaping for the relative freedom of the front porch, where she preferred to eat her meals. Jackrabbit pulse be damned. The luminous green eyes could stay in the house. Far away from her.

    Sol trotted over, his tail high and loose, and she got comfortable on the top step while the big dog made a half-circle behind her, finally laying down at her elbow. His long tongue made one pass across his muzzle as he gazed up expectantly, his brown eyes shifting from plate to face, plate to face.

    Green to brown? A better trade, by far.

    ”Breakfast?”

    The dog nudged her elbow with his nose, lifting the plate and nearly spilling it.

    ”All right, already. Jeeze.” He’d nudged a smile from her, too, the dang cur, tugging her back to the here and now. Which was on the front porch. Not the dining room. Where…her thoughts tripped on dancey feet right back to the spot they shouldn’t go.

    God, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen the man sitting in that exact same spot at the table every damned morning since his arrival. His posture wasn’t anything new, either. He always sat like she’d seen some dogs do when Sol got a little over-aggressive: backs to something solid and their center of gravity lowered. Where they could strike while protecting themselves.

    The image of the woman in her dreams popped front and center like a jealous starlet craving attention. As if she hadn’t already been more demanding lately.

     Since the new guy arrived.

    True. The dreams weren’t only more frequent, but more intense. Sofia kept waking up sweating, as if her real body burned like her dreaming one.

    Which was crazy.

    Low blood sugar. At least, that was surely her problem this morning. She did feel off today: hot flashes hitting her while she’d been squatting under the cows, bumping udders and stripping teats. Her sense of smell was too acute, too. The sweet scent of hot, animal milk cocktailing with steamy cow shit.

    Maybe that was why the usual presence of the new guy hit her so forcefully this morning.

    Yeah, that was it. She was sick. Was fighting a flu bug. Explained everything, yes it did.

    Except her appetite. Her belly gurgled hard enough she felt its hollow passageways straight through to her intestines. Wasn’t the first time in her life she’d been this hungry, and those pangs didn’t even spark selfishness. She shared her breakfast with her dearest friend, no matter how hard her empty stomach cramped.

    Because Sol’s belly was as unfilled as hers.

    Forget her promise to the pup—she didn’t share out of obligation, but love. Yeah, she’d pledged an oath to always look out for him, but she looked after him because it felt great to do it. His wagging tail and shining eyes were payment enough, stuffing her with so much happiness sometimes her skin got tight.

    So, she could share her breakfast without a thought, even though her belly twisted in on itself. “Good, huh?”

    Sol cocked his head, his tongue doing a lap around his muzzle again. The give and take of another shared meal over with, Sofia set the plate down on the porch for the dog to lick clean just as Charlie and the rest of the crew trickled out onto the big porch to smoke cigarettes, or enjoy the last of the coffee, and make plans for the day.

    The new guy was the last to come out of the front door. Not that Sofia noticed, damn it. She nailed her eyes on her booted feet because the stitching around the toes was a fascinating and prime example of high quality craftsmanship. It really was. Sol’s tail fanned a traitorous greeting.

    And because she was fighting the flu, what with the heat flaring up through the collar of her shirt and everything, she smelled him. Dear lord, he smelled edgy like the resin from pine trees. Sharp, clean.

    She did not turn her face to catch its receding. No she did not. Nor did she notice him perch on the railing so he wasn’t exactly removed from everyone else, but he was one scooch of his ass cheeks away from it.

    Her mind did not imagine said ass cheeks, either.

    Quick to latch onto any distraction, she paid strict attention to the house-girl coming out.  As did the guy she was not watching out of the corner of her eye. Sol locked onto the girl, too, sharing German’s rapt expression. Maybe they both adored the smell of bacon.

    Not one to make excuses for departing, Sofia headed into the house to put her plate and silverware into the dishwasher, thanking Charlie’s wife on her way out toward the unrestricted freedom of the outdoors. Sol didn’t follow her, no surprise. He wanted whatever scraps the flitting bird-girl had brought out of the kitchen. Along with…shut it, Sofe. Enough with the thoughts about this German guy. Time to send him packing.

    Sofia headed off without her four-legged shadow, gearing herself up to shovel more manure while plotting ways to get this guy off the farm.

~S.C. Dane

Installment # 12 coming Saturday, December 21, 2013.

Wolf-Love, Installment #10

Wolf-Love

Installment # 10

    German was awake to watch Sofia exit the barn. Actually, he’d never gone to bed, at least, not in the farmhouse. He’d remained outside under the night sky, where he preferred to have a ceiling of stars above him instead of one made of sheetrock.

    For a while, he’d let his wolf out to run, and felt better for it. Luna knew he needed a break from the dilemma he found himself in. He also needed some time to think, and running on all fours freed him up to do it. Solutions tended to fly as fast as his paws.

    As for the rogue, he was going to have to interfere pretty damn soon. Everyday brought her closer to her transition. And shift she would. German had no doubts about that. He just had to find a time and place to approach her.

    Provided he could keep his wolf under his skin while he did it. No panting to claim a mate.

    Not until she shifts.

    Fine. He’d throw himself a bone and pretend she wasn’t going to lose her marbles because fur was flowing out of her bare skin. Oh, and yeah, she was going to love the pain of her first transition. And the inferno blazing within her. Of course she would.

    Never mind that her face was going to break to make way for her muzzle.

    Oh, yes. Things were going to be just fine.

    And then the fun would just keep rolling, because he’d have to find a way to get her to the Compound while telling her, without lying, that everything was going to be okay.

    Sure. Because she really liked when people got in her grill. Which is what was going to happen when he delivered her to the Alphas. They would leash her, indoctrinate her to their new ways.

    Yeah, they’d be needing some luck with that.

    So far, Sofia didn’t strike him as the type to conform to too many rules. She was a rogue in more ways than one.

    Alpha.

    Yeah, if this woman actually survived her transition, she wasn’t going to roll on her back for anyone. Not even him. And he had to take her to the one place that wouldn’t tolerate insubordination from anyone.

    German ought to know. He had the scar on his lower back to prove it.

    Which was a thought that got him off his ass and out of dreamland.

    He didn’t need or want a mate. He wanted his freedom, even if it came at the cost of another’s. He didn’t owe this rogue a damned thing. Nor would he give a shit if she was drooling through half-formed lips and she kept one human leg. He’d take her living, howling freak carcass back to Minnesota and give the Alphas what they’d wanted.

    Hell, they’d sent him on this Mission: Impossible, let them see what he came across on the front lines. Maybe then they’d understand first-hand why he killed the rogues he was sent after.

    He rose out of his crouch by the chicken house and went corpse still.

    His target had stopped at the gate where the cows were pastured. She was on her hands and knees, tugging on one end of a stick. On the other end? Her goddamned dog.

    They were playing.

    ”Fuck.”

    German suddenly felt like he was circling the drain, his knees going all loose. Because reality crashed broadside into his fantasy, careening it off his road of good intentions. The real woman, the redheaded rogue, was a beauty. A damned fine gem in the world of the wolf-people.

    He had no fucking clue what to do about her. He prayed to his goddess Luna she survived her first transition.

    If she didn’t? Getting caged by the Alphas was going to be the least of his problems.

    And didn’t that just latch to his ass like a seventy pound pitbull. The other set of fangs in his butt cheeks? The rogue who set fire to his blood could already be too damaged by human society. Un. Glued. That was him just thinking it might be possible. To anchor himself he crouched back down, appreciating the grip of gravity not just under his feet, but his hands, as well.

    Unaware he was even around, the rogue did the opposite: standing upright to throw the stick so the dog could chase it. When the wolfhound mutt bounded off in one direction, Sofia headed in the other, slipping through the wooden gate to follow the skinny trail stamped into the over-grazed grass. Years upon years of cows following the same path to the milking barn had etched a trough, and the rogue walked it with breathtaking balance, her strides sure and strong.

    German’s wolf shivered close to his skin, turning his clothes into an oven he wanted to shed. Pushing his palms against the cool earth did little to ease the Shake and Bake.

    Tough titty for him. It was growing lighter by the minute and he needed to keep his human form in case he was spotted. By now, the other farmhands would be stirring. Like it read his thoughts, a window on the second floor of the farmhouse blazed yellow, followed soon by two on the main floor. The kitchen. The humans were rising as sure as the sun in the eastern sky.

    Too bad his stomach was sinking. Sofia was part of that household, whether she slept in the barn or not. Sure, she preferred her dog’s company over anyone else, but he wasn’t certain why. Did he pray to Luna it was because she carried so much wolf blood in her veins she couldn’t stand being around humans? Like a damned Hari krishna. Which made him an idiot, now didn’t it?

    Dearest Luna. There was no way to tell how any of this was going to play out. The rogue kept her walls too high, shooting down anyone who might trespass onto her inner landscape. Yeah, his bravado had him shoving her in a rental car and driving her deformed ass to Minnesota. But his heart cried otherwise.

    Stinking wad of muscle that it was.

    For now, he’d just have to sit his sore ass on the fence, playing Wait and See.

    Like he could do otherwise? He’d approach her if she so much as tipped the drawbridge of her lone, little castle surrounded by its moat.

    German pulled deeper into the shadows, then made like he was coming back from an early morning hike. He didn’t need to invite suspicion from any of the humans. Sofia included.

    Sofia especially.

    He made like a tourist and sauntered toward the farmhouse, leaving the rogue to her cows.

    ~S.C. Dane

    Keep watch for Installment #11. Sneaking up sooner than you think.

Wolf-Love, Installment #9

Wolf-Love

Installment #9

    Returning to the loft, Sofia lodged herself back into her nest. Sol-Dog flopped in beside her, curling his spine around his long, folded legs. Without further ado, the fleabag fell into a heavy slumber, unconcerned by their intruder’s abrupt departure.

    Sofia’s brain wasn’t so easily forgetful, and it tumbled around her latest defensive shove. Yeah, she knew she was good at pushing people away. But this guy practically tripped over himself to get out the door. So what if she told him to beat it. He didn’t have to bail from the barn like she was Medusa.

    Jesus, was she that bad?

    Beside her, Sol heaved the air out of his deep lungs, and Sofia ran her hand down the broad chest. “Thanks, pup.” Like his airbags were sympathetic.

    Comforted, as only her dog could do, she let her mind’s fingers slip from the scene that had played out just below them in the milking station. Instead, she let her physical senses take over, as though her hand on Sol was a conduit to the animal lying so close to her.

    For a moment, their breaths synced, until hers grew slower, a little deeper. The sweet aroma of curing grass warmed her all over, inside and out, until she had no form and drifted into sleep.

    The dreams returned as vivid as ever, and the sleeping Sofia flinched and sweated as she lay cocooned within the loose hay.

    The beautiful woman was back, standing beside her tree which, thick of girth as it was, swayed and scratched its bare branches in concert with the woman’s form beside it.

    Sofia was mesmerized, and moved as if she were a mirror image of the amber-eyed woman before her. Then the woman lifted her hand, such a strange hand only found in dreams. She held out her fist and uncurled it, palm side up, the long fingers unfurling. But it was the placement of the thumb, higher up by the wrist, that always stilled the dreaming Sofia, and always, always it was at this time that her blood would feel as if it were lava itself.

    She’d wake up then, soaked in her own sweat, even when she’d been a little girl. Yet, no matter how many times she’d had the dream, she’d never shaken the fear of her blood being on fire, of the woman’s eerie hand.

    Until this time.

    This time Sofia stuck it out, willing her dream-self to hold on, to figure out what the amber-eyed woman wanted, even as her blood boiled within her veins.

    Her knees buckled to the forest floor and she threw her hands out to catch herself. Then she lifted her face to the woman at the tree, who smiled like the Peita herself, her lids heavy with thick, long lashes.

    ”Yes, child.”

    It was the first time she’d ever heard the woman speak, and it was as if the tree itself whispered with the breath of its age.

    Sofia’s heart swelled with the strange woman’s pride. It filled her chest until she thought the cage of her ribs would splinter and shift to accommodate the thumping.

    Her blood burned beneath her skin.

    But she locked her eyes on those amber ones in front of her.

    Then the woman at the tree smiled.

    Sofia screamed.

    She bolted upright, lodging the scream in her throat, and knew instantly she was awake and no longer dreaming. Her blood wasn’t burning, for one thing. Sol was next to her for the other.

    But her brain clutched the dream like a cobweb does a fly, and Sofia found herself pursuing its sticky strand, straight back to the last image she’d seen before waking.

    Her heart still hammered, but at least it wasn’t flapping like a startled partridge while she was awake and remembering. Because she did remember. Vividly. As she always did.

    This night, the woman had smiled. And even though her eyes had remained beatifically warm, her lifted lips had revealed a strong row of sharp teeth Sofia had only seen in horror movies.

    The tree-woman had fangs.

    Pair that with the freaky hand? Equals the dream gets classified as nightmare.

    Just another component of the orphan’s fucked up life, Sofia figured. Ten more pounds to the ball and chain that was the punishment of her life.

    Right.

    Sofia rubbed her palms across her face, then glanced over at her dog, who’d laid his head back down once he realized she wasn’t getting up.

    ”Laze bag.”

    It was morning. The sun had yet to split the darkness, and when she craned her neck to peek out of the open window at her end of the loft, she could still see a few dazzling stars stuck to the pewter sky.

    She’d have to milk the cows shortly. Round them up and bring them down from the pasture. Until then, though, she could spend some time thinking about her nightmare.

    With her heart rate settling back into normal range and her dog lying beside her, the woman in her dreams lost the aura of horror.

    In circumspect, Sofia realized, not for one second had the woman lost that look of acceptance in her amber eyes.

    The idea stilled her.

    Sofia had been on the receiving end of acceptance.

    For the first time in her life.

    Of course, it was only in a dream. But, hey, a girl had to take what she could.

    You’re pitiful, Sofe.

    Probably. But she’d basked in that feeling while she’d been dreaming, and it had felt so good. Like water to a straggler in the desert.

    Okay. So that’s not so bad. Especially since that warm, fuzzy feeling was

real, because she was feeling it right then. Maybe the dream, for once, wasn’t as bad as she’d initially thought.

    Panicked.

    All right, she’d freaked out. But not the next time. The next time the amber-eyed woman smiled at her, Sofia vowed she’d force her dream-self to remain on her hands and knees to find out why she’d received such adoration.

    Surely, straddling like a dog on all fours wasn’t the reason.

    With resolve replacing her fear, Sofia stretched to her feet.

    ”Get up, lazy ass.” She nudged Sol’s butt with her toe before heading for the stairs. “You’re wasting daylight.”

    The dog yawned and stretched, too, then happily doddered his huge frame after her.

    Sofia smiled down at him, remembering her dream. Nope, she supposed, it wouldn’t be so bad to act like a dog if it meant getting loved.

    ~S.C. Dane

    Installment #10 coming December 14, 2013.

Wolf-Love, Installment #8

Wolf-Love

Installment #8

    Great. You’re standing in the dark like a creep and my dog says hi.

    He forgot the dog’s head was pressed to his hand. Easy to do when you got nailed to the floor. Right where his feet touched wood, German grew roots all the way to the bedrock. Then his spine erupted, blasting heat through his body like the vacuumed detonation of a bomb, and every strand of hair protruding from his skin lifted.

    Toward her.

    His brain finally registered the twining of his guts. It was the same sensation he’d felt earlier when he’d caught her scent, only this time her voice lassoed itself around his insides and cinched them taut.

    So that he couldn’t breathe.

    Although his heart rammed so hard against his sternum it hurt. He locked eyes with the woman before him, even in the dark.

    Holy mother-effing-Luna what have I gotten myself into?

    But he knew. Like he knew how far he could go before his blood got too hot and he transitioned. Like he knew when he was happy, his missing tail wagged. Like he knew when a human hunter had him lined up in the cross-hairs.

    Sofia was his destined mate. The one creature on the planet who could move him on a cellular level, and it was the rogue.

    Who flipped on the lights, practically blinding him because he couldn’t pull his eyes off of her.

    She stood before him indignant, and if his nose was right? His rogue seeped the subtle strain of attraction. He smelled her heat kindling where her long legs joined that wondrous rump he’d been admiring since he’d arrived on this damned farm.

    He felt himself harden for her, his body readying to claim his mate, to mark her as his own. Felt his fangs slide through his gums and the walls of the barn sharpen into crisp focus.

    He flicked one muscle to lift his foot toward her and froze, hit by the proverbial wrecking ball as he realized what he was about to do. He was about to reveal himself to claim a mate who wasn’t even wolf yet, who didn’t even know what she was, and who would probably be dead in a few days, slain by his very hand.

    He was appalled. Transfixed. And most certainly doomed.

    Because even if she lived through her transition? He had to return her to the Compound in exchange for his freedom.

    What kind of fucked up universe did he belong to?

    Beat it, buddy, before I kick your ass.

    He did as she directed. He ran as if the hounds of hell nipped at his heels.

    Because they did.

    Because no matter how he looked at it, he was fucked up seven ways from Sunday and there was no one to save him. Not even the rogue who would have been his salvation.

    ~S.C. Dane

    Keep peeking for the next installment: #9.