Stalk (Hotblooded Book 1) Read online

  After a few seconds of assessing the situation, she concluded that she could set a course of pretend denial, wallow in self-pity, or come to terms with the facts. The facts were that she was an ordinary girl with an ordinary job who lived in a tiny walk-up above a pizza delivery joint. Who had turned out to be a werewolf. There was one more fact in evidence. She was also the kind of person who would hitch up the bigger girl pants and march across the street to confront a gorgeous stalker. Who turned out to be a guy who looked at her like she hung the moon in the sky.

  Lemonade doesn’t get better than that.

  “Okay.” She acquiesced. It took less than three minutes to get out of the ensemble she’d been wearing, which was fabulous if she did say so herself. She wasn’t able to shop at Nordstrom, but she had a discerning eye and she took it with her to vintage and second-hand rose stores. “Proving that you are given to hyperbole, that only took a minute.” He chuckled. “I’m not crazy about leaving my clothes on the ground.”

  “Why?”

  She looked at him like he was impaired. “Because someone might take them. Or a wild animal might pee on them.”

  He laughed out loud. “If somebody takes them, which won’t happen, but if it does, you can buy new clothes. As to the other thing, no wild animal is going to come near your clothes.”

  “First, I don’t have the money to just buy new clothes. Second…”

  “Let’s go back to first. You’re my mate. That means you’re part of the pack. That means you share the wealth.”

  “Wealth?” She looked back toward the lodge as if it was just dawning on her that the werewolves might be doing okay financially.

  “Yes. Wealth.”

  “The mate thing and pack thing are still undecided. Just for the record.”

  “What record is that?”

  “You know.” She waved her arms. “The record!”

  “Saying it louder doesn’t clarify your meaning.”

  “It’s an expression. The point is that I haven’t agreed I’m your, um, mate and I certainly haven’t agreed to be part of your, um…”

  “Pack.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And, second, no animal is going to come anywhere near your clothes because you’re a werewolf.”

  “So there’s an invisible sign that says werewolf belongings, keep away?”

  He shook his head. “Better than a sign. A scent.” She blinked slowly and looked like she was trying to process that. “Here,” his head moved side to side to indicate where they stood, “you’re a newly minted bad ass. Wolf with anthropoid cunning. It’s a fearsome combination. Can’t be beat.”

  After studying him for a few seconds, she said, “Hmmm.”

  About that same time she realized she’d lost all self-consciousness about standing in a mountain forest naked as the jaybird who was making a fuss above them.

  “So. What? We’re ‘taking the wolf for a test drive’?”

  He smiled. “That’s the plan. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “You’re already seeing everything I’ve got,” she quipped. When he smirked, she took a deep breath and said, “You mean you want me to turn into a werewolf now.”

  “Shift. Yes. That’s the idea.”

  “Okay. So I’m here in the great outdoors without a stitch of clothing on my body, feeling unbelievably foolish. What do I do now?”

  Nick had once heard it said that, if you don’t know how to teach a thing then you don’t really know how to do it. The author of that quote was clearly not a werewolf. Because he did know how to shift and he didn’t know how to teach it.

  “Well, I guess we could…” He stopped when he saw the jerk of her head and the leap of fire into her eyes.

  “Your next words could be the last you ever speak to me. Consider carefully.”

  “I was going to say that maybe we can break down what I do into steps. I didn’t consciously learn shifting. Werewolves can run as pups long before they can walk as anthropoids. So it’s really as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. You want to give that a try?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. I’m not really in a position to suggest alternatives.”

  “Right. So. The first thing I do is…” The second that Nick thought about being in four-legged form, he shifted into a large gray wolf with yellow eyes. The process wasn’t lengthy or laborious. He thought about it and it was. Simple as that.

  Reese laughed. “Points for shifting, but the explanation bombed.” The laughter ended on a smile. “You look good though. Not exactly like yourself. But somehow I know it’s you.” She cocked her head to the side considering that.

  Nick half-sneezed, looked a little embarrassed, then walked over to her. She reached down to pet the silky fur on the top of his head. After a few seconds she lowered herself to her knees so that they were at eye level, more or less. He put his wet nose in her ear and licked.

  “Stop!” She laughed. She reached out thinking she would push him away, but realized she’d laid a paw on his shoulder instead of a hand. Even though that was what she’d intended, it was still shocking. “I’m guessing there’s really no way to prepare for something like that.” She was talking to herself as if she was alone, forgetting that Nick could probably understand her in four-legged form.

  He backed up two steps and barked then crouched down on his front paws while hips and tail wagged behind him.

  Something about that must have excited Reese’s wolf. She opened her mouth to say something, but the sound that came out sounded way too much like Scooby trying to talk.

  She looked down and around, checking herself out. Everything seemed wolfyfied. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye and whirled around. After doing that a few times she stopped and looked at Nick, who was sitting on his rear with tongue hanging out and an unmistakable lupine grin on his face. There was no explanation as to how, but she knew he was laughing at her.

  She charged him at a sprint and ducked left at the last possible moment. It seemed that the ability to shift took some coaxing, but having highly developed motor skills in a completely foreign body came naturally.

  Nick growled and chased her as she sprinted toward the river valley and headed her off when she turned in the direction of property owned by humans. They frolicked and played and explored together. Sometimes play fighting. Sometimes quietly sitting and licking each other’s muzzles.

  He led her back to the tiny clearing where they’d left their clothes, with just enough light left to get home before dark. That was the first time she realized that she’d been so caught up in the joys of being wolf she hadn’t paid any attention to where they were going.

  Nick shifted to two-legged form and said, “Come on. You can do it.” Reese sat down and stared. “No. That won’t do. You have to try.” She responded by lowering herself to sphinx pose. “Reese. You don’t want to remain a wolf for the rest of your life.”

  She lifted her head and showed her teeth in a combination of happiness and defiance. By the time he was fully dressed he was looking concerned about the fact that she was making zero effort.

  “Well,” he said. “I can carry your clothes home if you want to stay in wolf form, but – just saying – you might involuntarily shift in front of the others. If that’s okay with you…”

  Without further encouragement or threats, she shifted into a young woman kneeling on rocky ground.

  She tried to say, “Ow,” because of the sharp rocks digging into her knees, but a yowl came out instead.

  “Ah…” Nick pointed toward her face.

  She reached up and felt around. Apparently her shift was incomplete. She still had a partially transformed muzzle and two ears sticking up from her head. The resulting sound of horror and protest was somewhere between a howl and a shriek! Her eyes pled with Nick and seemed to be saying, “Do something!”

  “Picture yourself looking in a mirror putting on makeup,” he said. />
  Nothing happened.

  “Picture yourself telling me off.”

  That did the trick. She shifted the rest of the way. “Look at my knees!”

  He dropped down and rubbed her knees. When he stood up, he found that, despite having insisted that werewolves were not affected by nudity, he was becoming aroused by the sight of his mate in two-legged form.

  Huh.

  He pulled her into his body and nuzzled her neck. “Tell the truth. Was that not fun?”

  She gave a throaty laugh. “You know it was.”

  “How about this?” he asked as he pinched a nipple lightly.

  She gasped. “Bad wolf.”

  He laughed. “You want to see bad wolf?”

  She wasn’t entirely sure, but decided the new Reese was a risk taker. That and she couldn’t resist the smell of his arousal. “Maybe.”

  He lifted her so that her legs wound around his waist, backed her into a smooth bark aspen tree, and held her in place with the pressure of his weight while he got his jeans undone.

  He reclaimed her mouth in a kiss just before driving into her, swallowing the moans and sexy sounds of approval that he was learning were the essence of Reese Braga.

  At one point in their almost-frantic joining, she felt an impulse to turn and bite his face, but refrained.

  Down, girl.

  Even in the frenzy of ecstatic copulation, she felt a glimmer of satisfaction for having controlled her wolf and thought that talking to her alter nature might prove to be a useful tool.

  When Nick set her down and stepped back so that she could get dressed, a sudden gust of wind whipped through the little clearing. Mixed in with the mild fall breeze was an unmistakable streak of biting cold.

  “Did you feel that?” she said.

  “The cold? Yeah. We’ll probably get the first snow soon.”

  “What about the cannabis?”

  “We’ve already taken the harvest. Growing season is short up here, but everything gets big fast. They’re experimenting with a few cold-hardy strains and making plans to build an indoor facility for others. But the really good stuff is always going to come from the summer sunshine crop.”

  She nodded. “I’ve never tried it.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Could be instinct. The effect is not the same as with humans.”

  “How’s it different?”

  “Well, for one thing, there’s the issue of…”

  “…control.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m starting to detect a theme.”

  Once she was completely dressed, they joined hands and walked back toward the lodge in the final minutes of twilight. The others were gathered around a fire.

  “Come join us,” Rapp said with an engaging smile.

  Reese raised her face and sniffed unapologetically. “That smells really good.”

  “It’s a thing Ken does on his night. Kind of like fajitas. He grills strips of beef and chicken with garlic and lime, then shoves them into corn tortillas and rolls ‘em up with lots of gooey Mexican cheese.”

  “Yeah,” Reese said. “I’ll have some.”

  “You playing hooky?” Mars teased Nick.

  “Guess you could call it that. It’s not every day I mate with a beautiful female werewolf.” Nick grinned.

  “No gloating,” Grey said sternly as he threw the last of a mug of coffee on the ground.

  “I wasn’t gloating exactly,” Nick said. Grey gave him a steely look, so he changed the subject. “Reese went on her first ever run as a wolf.”

  All eyes turned to her as Ken handed her a plate with two burrito-style fajita rolls. Since they seemed to be waiting for some response from her, she cleared her throat and said, “Yeah. It was… good.”

  Rapp grinned. “We were all born shifters. It must be weird converting.”

  “I wouldn’t say I converted,” Reese said after swallowing a bite of beef al carbon. “That would imply that there was a choice.” When no response other than stares was forthcoming, Reese decided that might have sounded impolite. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being, um…”

  She was still having trouble deciding which word or phrase to insert. While she was sorting between werewolf, shifter, dual-natured, four-legged, etc., Ken spoke up.

  “Well, I think she should be added to the duty roster.”

  “We could let her be a guest for a while,” Kai countered.

  “Too late for that,” Rapp said. “She cooked her own breakfast.” Everybody looked at Rapp. “What? I had already cleaned up when they showed at noon thirty.”

  “Eleven,” Nick corrected.

  “Noon. Eleven. Lazy is lazy,” Ken said with mischief in his tone.

  “They’re not being lazy. They’re newly mated!” Nick gave Kai a look of gratitude for joining their defense.

  Grey listened silently and patiently as everybody else put in their two cents. When they were finished, he turned to Reese. “Have you accepted Sigil as your mate?”

  Reese would have described the situation as the ultimate in being ‘put on the spot’. She hadn’t yet come to terms with her feelings about the bizarre turn of events and hadn’t given herself a deadline for doing so. Why rush? But that yet-to-be-determined timetable had just crystalized into the moment at hand. While she was deciding how to answer, her mind processed her history with Nick Sigil.

  The rocky beginning of their relationship hadn’t stayed rocky for long. Within minutes she’d been disarmed by his unwavering assurance that he was employing a legitimate means of romantic pursuit. That being bolstered by laughing eyes, authenticity worn like a visible aura, and a heavenly smell.

  Gorgeous to a fault. Check.

  Intelligent. Check.

  Good company. Check.

  Fun. Check.

  Good in bed. Check.

  Offering absolute commitment. Check.

  She inhaled deeply through her nose then looked at Nick, who appeared to be holding his own breath. Her sudden grin was as bright as the fire around which they sat. “Yes!” she said. “I have.”

  Nick’s mouth didn’t move. The smile he gave her was all there in his eyes.

  Grey nodded. “Then you’re a member of this pack. And all the members of the pack share in the work.”

  “Okay,” she said agreeably.

  “But I understand you’re busy working things out. So we’ll put off working you into rotation until next week,” Grey continued. “Or whenever you have a handle on both woman and wolf. For now, things stay the same.” He stood and looked toward the east. “Moon is just two days short of full and topping those trees in twenty minutes. Good light tonight. Anybody else want a run?”

  Every one of the six werewolves who wasn’t Nick said they were in, stood and started undressing right where they were.

  Nick, who was grateful to Gray for not pushing Reese unnecessarily said, “We’ll keep the fire going.” He looked at Reese and smiled at her obvious discomfort.

  During the disrobing segment of the evening’s events she’d sat still as a statue and, to her credit, didn’t look away. But if it was uncomfortable being the only female amid seven men, it was exponentially more uncomfortable to be the only female amid seven very naked men, every one of whom was fit and attractive in his own way. She didn’t see their forms in broad daylight, but there was enough light from the fire to draw some conclusions visually. Like, for instance, that Ken’s body was spotted all over.

  One by one they collapsed to four-legged form and ran after Grey, following his lead.

  When it was just Nick and Reese left alone to enjoy the fire and the pleasantly cool fall night, she said, “I can honestly say that was something I never expected to experience in this lifetime.”

  “Watching them shift?”

  She jerked her head toward him. “Ass. You know what I’m talking about.” He chuckled. “It doesn’t bother you that your mate just ogled six naked guys who are not you
?”

  He cocked his head and smiled. “Did you ogle?”

  She sat back and faced the fire, repeating that question to herself before answering. “I looked.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean ‘and’?”

  “What was your reaction?”

  She thought it over before pinpointing her feelings. “Curious, but not interested.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So that was the right answer?”

  He laughed. “It was the answer you’d expect to hear from a mated female werewolf.”

  “Huh.”

  “I think the more you’re exposed to nudity, the less sensitive you’ll be.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Did you arrange the show part of dinner and a show?”

  “What do you mean?” He did his best to appear guileless.

  “Answer. The. Question. Mate.”

  “Well, I might have suggested to the alpha that taking the edge off your self-consciousness might be part of your education.”

  “So that was for my benefit.”

  “Only in part.” He sounded defensive. “It is a beautiful night for a run.”

  “Two days ago I would not have been able to imagine that my boyfriend was encouraging a half dozen hot guys to get naked and parade around in front of me.”

  “I wouldn’t call what happened a parade.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s been a really strange couple of days.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  She looked at him. “I don’t think you can. But thanks for trying.” He nodded once. “And this doesn’t mean that I’m ready to strip for the, um…”

  “Pack. It would help if you didn’t think of shedding clothes and stripping for somebody else. It’s just a means to release your wolf.”

  “Okay. How’s this? I’m not ready to strip in front of the pack.”

  “How about me?”

  “That’s different.”

  “So… how about me?”

  “You mean right here?” She looked around. “Right now?”

  He nodded. “That is what I mean. Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He laughed. “Well, you can practice shift on demand. If it doesn’t work out, maybe I can still get a lap dance.”

  “That’s not much motivation to shift.” The image of a lap dance made Reese tingle in all the erogenous places and she suddenly became very interested in ridding herself of clothes.