Braden’s lips moved over hers, his breath a teasing caress. “Focus, Beth.”
Warm lips pressed against hers, gently at first, then building in pressure. Beth willed herself to relax into the kiss, push away the worry that crowded her mind and just enjoy the warm press of his lips against her own.
He pulled back, the fingers at the nape of her neck kneading against the tension. “Focus.”
Beth opened eyes she hadn’t even realized she’d shut and whispered, “On what?”
He laughed lightly and touched the tip of her nose with his. “If you have to ask, I’m not doing this right.”
Beth smiled. “It’s hard to focus when you’re doing things like that.”
“Hmm, maybe I’m doing it right after all.” He pressed another kiss to her lips, but didn’t let it gain momentum. “Focus on the strongest sensation. Wolves have far better senses than we do. Their ability to hear, their sense of smell…we can harness those senses in human form. It’s what Chase has been trying to show you.” He leaned in again, his lips ghosting over hers as he whispered, “Focus on me.”
His lips descended, warm and coaxing against hers. Beth fell into the warmth that connected them and responded. She covered the hand he tangled in her hair with her own, and slid her fingers over the back of his palm and across his wrist to stroke lightly against the corded muscles of his forearm.
He groaned and shifted closer to her, tilting her chin and angling his head. His tongue slid into her mouth, stroking against hers in a sensual dance of reacquaintance.
Sliding both her arms around him, Beth pulled a knee up on the bed and leaned forward, pressing into his chest. He wrapped both arms around her, used her momentum and rotated over her until her back was pinned to the mattress. He pressed the length of his body against her, his weight warm and solid between her legs, bracing her as she fell completely into the kiss.
His heartbeat pounded in her ears, urging her pulse to rush to match it, sending blood pulsing through her veins and molten heat to the center of her. She arched and bit off a cry, sinking teeth into her lower lip when fingers slid up under the hem of her shirt. His questing fingertips found a nipple and coaxed and teased it to hardness, forcing a moan from her mouth that he greedily absorbed with his own. His lips quirked and grinned against hers, then traced dancing patterns down her jaw until they reached the juncture of her neck. Teeth and tongue nipped and caressed against her sensitive skin. She sank her fingers into the hair at his nape and held his mouth against her neck.
Panting, she inhaled. The scent of him pressed against her nose and dominated her palate; the rich scent of earth and air, just before a supercharged storm. It sent her into a frenzy. She arched her back and shifted restlessly, undulating under his weight as she tried to press every corner of her body against his.
He pulled his head away from her neck, sealing his lips back over her own, tongue thrusting, tasting and imprinting him on every aspect of her consciousness. She moaned again and he turned aggressive, pressing her further into the mattress, nipping her bottom lip and pulling her leg up to wrap around his waist.
Thoughts, both alien and her own, drove her to score her nails down his back.
Her primal reaction sent her spinning back to reality. She wrenched her mouth from his, breathless and panting, and tried to reign in the sensations firing in and around her.
She placed a trembling palm against his chest. “I…I just need a minute.” Her thoughts raced and she realized that although her mind had pulled away from the firestorm of sensations, her body still moved restless and yearning beneath his.
How much of this reaction is me? How much is the yearning of an animal?
The question sliced through the remaining haze of lust. She pushed at him and tried to sit up. His didn’t move, his forehead creased and his face caught in a grimace as though he waged an internal war. His heart beat furiously beneath her palm. Finally, he pushed himself up and rolled away, his fists clenching by his sides, as though he were physically restraining himself from touching her.
Beth sat up and swung trembling legs over the side of the bed. “That was…”
“Intense?”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re running away. Again.” His voice was harsh and grating, his breath still coming in forced pants.
“No.” Defensive, Beth slid off the bed and moved toward the door. Braden pinned her with a feral look. “I—I need some space. Some time to process.”
Braden sat up and bared his teeth. “Fine. Take all the time you need.”
“I’m sorry.” She said, uncomfortably aware that they’d come full circle.
Braden rose and prowled toward her. She matched every step he took until she was in the hallway.
He stopped dead in the doorway. “Christ, Beth. I’m not going to attack you.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, then shoved them in his pockets. “We’re on your schedule.” He reached for the door, white knuckles gripping the knob. “It’s late.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So you’ve said,” he replied, working the muscles along his jaw.
“What do you want me to say? That this is fine? That I’m okay with this?” Hurt and anger fueled her words. “Because I’m not. I can’t help it. I don’t know what’s me anymore! I don’t want to be driven by an animal. Consumed by its needs.”
“Please,” he growled. “That’s just the handy excuse you use to keep putting space between us.”
“It’s true!”
“And convenient!” He countered. “Okay, fine. You’re unsettled. This part of yourself scares you, but that’s not all of it. Hell, that’s not even the bulk of it.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, you do. You just won’t admit it. But I’ll enlighten you, anyway. You think the wolf scares you? You’re afraid of losing control? Bullshit. You’re afraid of living with it, of liking it. You’re so wrapped up in the guilt you feel over Rachel’s death you can’t see straight. The more you learn, the more you practice, the farther away from the monster you get. And it terrifies you. You can’t stand the thought of embracing a part of you that reminds you of Rachel’s death. So you bury it. Ignore it. And you push me away.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You’re right, it’s not. But that’s on you.” He slammed the door shut behind him and moved toward the stairs. “I’m done. When you’re finished punishing yourself, let me know.” He descended the stairs before she could reply.
Chapter Twenty-One
Beth took in a deep breath of forest air, closed her eyes and tried, again, to focus. She’d tossed and turned the entire night, lying awake and unsettled by the intensity of her encounter with Braden. She still wasn’t sure what to do about him. But one answer had come to her in the darkness. She finally understood what Chase had been trying to teach her. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out that she needed to start by focusing exclusively on one object, with one sense, and then open herself to the rest of them. Last night it had been the feel of Braden pressed against her, warm and deliciously male, that had finally snapped her senses into focus. Just the echoes of the sensations were enough to arouse her.
Beth pulled herself away from the memory and allowed herself to only consider what it taught her.
Focus on one thing. Let your senses spread from there.
Instinct, rather than determination, would get her what she wanted. Widening her stance, she let her eyes fall closed and focused exclusively on the first thing she noticed.
Chase, standing next to her, radiated heat and his breathing was slow and measured. In, out. In, out. In, out. Without thought, Beth altered her breathing to match his, the sound of air rushing through lungs and out the nose the only thing she heard.
“What do you hear?” Chase’s voice joined the sound of their breathing, sending her concentration wobbling.
Maintaining her exclusive focus on what she heard, Beth assimilated Chase’s vo
ice. He repeated the question every few breaths like encouragement, until it layered into the sounds of their lungs stretching and collapsing, so intertwined it was almost indistinguishable.
Beth snapped her head toward a faint rustle to her right, tracking the sound through the underbrush.
“You hear that?”
Beth nodded, and then realized Chase’s voice didn’t block the other noises she was processing and decided to try to vocalize her answer, “Yes.”
“Good. Where?”
Beth focused again, pulling the sound to the forefront of her mind, actively muffling the various sounds that were beginning to seamlessly flow with Chase’s voice and their breathing. “A little to our right, moving closer.”
“How big is it?”
“Small, I think…but it sounds loud. Louder than I think it really is.”
“Good. Now, track its movement, and the next time it stops, I want you to open your eyes and tell me what you see.”
Beth frowned, a line of uncertainty creasing the skin between her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could maintain her focus if she opened up another sense.
Sensing her hesitation, Chase said, “You can do this. Remember, you aren’t opening up all of your senses. You won’t drown. Find the noise, focus only on it. When you are certain of where it is, open your eyes. See past everything else—the trees, the grass, everything. Your only concern is what’s making that noise.”
She pushed Chase’s voice out of her awareness. The undergrowth rustled. Closer now. Again. Creeping nearer to where she and Chase stood. She tracked the sound, each crunch and brush of undergrowth drawing her attention like a ping on sonar. When it stilled, and didn’t move again, Beth opened her eyes.
“What do you see?”
“Red.” It moved again, the sound still clear to her, though no longer her primary focus. “It’s small, maybe a cat?”
Chase laughed. “Not out here, look again.”
“It’s in the undergrowth again, I can’t see it.”
“Can you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Then be patient.”
Red fur darted between the trees, a flash of bushy tail. A glimpse of pointed ears. “It’s a fox. A young one.”
“And what do you want to do?”
The reply burst from her without thought. “Hunt.”
“Then focus on the senses you need to do that. On the legs that will make you fast enough, the ears that will hear every flick of his tail against the forest. Focus, and let the shift happen.”
Beth floundered for the first time that morning, two halves of her warring with each other. One half insisted she hunt. The other insisted she had no reason to. “I…”
“Don’t hesitate.” Chase’s voice was a grating whisper that silenced her conflicting thoughts. “Trust your instincts to guide you through the change. You can do this.”
No, I have to do this.
She focused on what she remembered of being a wolf and trained her senses on the noise the fox made as it circled away from them. The pain of the first muscle contractions caught her by surprise. She wavered, then redoubled her focus and slid into the change.
Less than a minute later, Beth stood on four shaking legs, still trembling from the change, but not aching as fiercely as she was used to. Stretching and arching, Beth shook off the last of the residual tension, then inhaled the forest scent that surrounded her. The musty fragrance of the forest rushed through her snout, her instincts separating the interesting smells from the nonessential, the most vibrant standing out like homing beacons. She smelled the way the morning dew dampened the earth, the far off stink of a skunk and the fur of the fox, coated in the earthy smell of his den.
Ears perking and eyes seeking, Beth rotated to where the fox last moved through the underbrush.
A rustle of leaves.
A flash of red.
Instinct took over. Her hindquarters hunched and her eyes fixed on the patch of red, bright against the green of the leaves. She thrust with her legs, pulled her forepaws underneath her and dove into the brush.
She came down hard and unbalanced, the force of her leap and the momentum of her body tossing her hind legs up and over, sending her rolling through the bushes. The fox skittered and raced away, disappearing out of sight. Chase’s laughter rang in her ears.
Beth picked her way out of the brush and trotted up to him.
“Well someone’s happy despite their loss.” Chase smiled smugly and glanced toward her tail.
Embarrassed, Beth willed her tail to stop swinging happily back and forth like a puppy who’d just chewed up a favored pair of shoes. Unsuccessful, she plopped her butt to the ground and growled a warning.
“Don’t worry about it. Everyone acts that way the first time. And everyone misses their first time, too.” He smiled a toothy grin and sat so they were eye to eye. “You’ll learn to control it better, balance your instincts with your reason.” Chase paused, considering her somberly. “It’s what makes us so dangerous. We keep our human minds, but have the instincts and abilities of an apex predator. With the right balance, the sheer predatory power of the wolf can be beautiful, even when deadly. It’s our human half we have to control. The temptation to revel in power is a far more potent force than you realize.”
Beth cocked her head, considering what Chase was trying to tell her. She thought about Rachel and the way she died. It was still difficult to believe that the wolf wasn’t vicious or evil. It was, after all, the wolf’s senses that had hunted them down, the wolf’s fangs that had ripped Rachel’s throat to shreds. Even now, all of her senses seemed to be analyzing and dismissing everything around her with only two criteria in mind: prey or threat. If it fit into neither category it was dismissed. It certainly seemed like the part of her consciousness dedicated to the wolf was pretty single-minded and very violent.
She knew instinctively what would have happened had she caught the fox. Saliva flooded her mouth at the thought and disgust surged through her.
“I can see that you’re still struggling with the distinction. That’s fine.” Chase extended careful fingers, running his hand over her head and around her ears before quickly withdrawing. “Alright. Let’s work on getting you back on two legs. Then we’ll do it again.”
***
Beth slunk around the door Chase held open for her, keeping her body low to the ground, her ears flicking back and forth.
This is so embarrassing!
The loose clothing she left the house in that morning hadn’t survived her first shift. Chase had whipped around just in time to avoid seeing anything that would truly embarrass her—or infuriate Braden. They’d had to spend the rest of the morning with Beth clutching the torn remains of her T-shirt and Chase standing thirty yards away, looking in the direction of the house. Thank God the first shift had been the hardest and the rest had gotten progressively easier because Beth didn’t think she could have focused too long standing naked in the middle of the forest. As there was no way in hell she’d walk back to the house naked, she’d been forced to come back in wolf form.
Hopefully, I can sneak in before anyone notices.
Beth scrambled up the stairs, her nails clicking against the hardwoods.
“Better be careful. There will be hell to pay if you scratch those floors.” Chase’s amused remark faded as she bolted down the hall and toward her room. She drew up short when she finally made it to her door.
Shit, it’s closed.
A whine escaped the back of her throat when her paw slid uselessly off the doorknob. Wrapping her jaws around it didn’t get her anywhere, either.
Crap.
She just wanted to get into the room, shift back, and feel human again. The only thing standing in her way was a closed door.
It isn’t even locked for crying out loud!
Beth tilted her head and considered her options. Shift back and risk being caught naked. Or go get someone to open it for her.
“Need a little help?” Braden
’s laughter surprised and irritated her, raising the hair between her shoulder blades.
Beth turned and pinned him with an icy glare, then scratched lightly against the door.
“Miss having thumbs, huh?” Braden hooked his own thumbs around the outside of his jean pockets and leaned casually against the door to the office.
Beth laid her ears flat against the back of her head.
Jerk. Don’t just stand there grinning!
He could at least be a gentleman and open the door for her. Pulling her lips back, Beth tried for a menacing snarl. That got her full-blown laughter. Frustrated, she darted down the hall, past Braden and into the office. Glancing around wildly for something of Braden’s, her eyes landed on his shoes, discarded by the desk.
Barely broken in leather.
They looked expensive.
Perfect.
Beth snapped one up and whirled past Braden, heading for her door.
“Shit.” He scrambled after her. “Those are new!”
Beth sat next to her door, pinning Braden with a challenging stare. When he didn’t immediately move, she let her jaw work around the shoe.
“Christ. Okay, okay.” He lunged forward and swung the door open for her. “There. Happy, now?”
Beth dropped his shoe and darted past him, moving straight for the bathroom. She heard him moaning something about drool before she was distracted by the spasms that wracked her as she willed herself back to human.
The shift left her shaking and leaning against the sink counter, panting for the first few seconds. It still hurt, every time, but it was a little easier every time, too. She no longer felt every bone and muscle snap and stretch; it was all starting to blur together into one short phase. Chase seemed to think it would get even easier.
She stuffed her arms through her robe and cinched the belt around her waist before she headed into the bedroom, intent on grabbing a change of clothes and taking a long, hot shower.
“Those were new, you know,” Braden whined.
“I hope I left teeth marks,” she said as she pulled fresh underwear out of the dresser.
“Aw, come on,” Braden said, fingers grasping the belt of her robe and pulling her to him. “Don’t be mad. Teasing is an Edwards tradition.”