Winter Howl (Sanctuary) Read online

  The group of werewolves paid her no notice, though—they took the new one into the woods, and were gone in a matter of seconds.

  “That could be you,” Grant rasped, the shift in his mouth and vocal cords not meant for speech. “It would be so easy.” He lapped at one of the healing wounds on her neck from the previous evening, the teeth dangerously close. She could feel them, dry on her skin.

  “No. No, not…” Renee stopped before the ‘yet’ could leave her lips, but she knew Grant heard it anyway. That low growl travelled from the base of her spine to the place where he held her unbroken skin between his teeth. She arched her back slightly, surprised into a flash of arousal even after the aphrodisiac had basically milked her for as much as she thought was possible. Maybe there’s even more, said a little voice in her head, and she was as intrigued as she was a little horrified.

  He released her, inch by inch, as his body began to groan. “It’ll take work to stay on,” Grant said. “Have you ever ridden a horse bareback?”

  Renee shook her head. They had only ever had cows.

  “You’ll have to use all your muscles. It’ll be tiring, but once I get into a stride, you’ll get used to it. You’ll love it.” He finally fell forward and could no longer speak to her. He was huge—he always looked so big when he was right there in front of her, looking down just a little from his great height. He lowered himself to the ground to allow her to figure out how to climb on.

  Renee had ridden a horse once before, but it had worn a saddle. Grant was as tall as a horse, but his frame was a little slimmer. She found a place just below his ribs to clench her knees. Grant was telling the truth when he said it would take work to stay on him, and her jeans were rough against her crotch without panties underneath. She shifted her coat so that it could pad her against his spine. She gently leant forward, laying herself against his back and wrapping her arms around his neck, away from his face. The muscles of his front legs shifted beneath her as he stood, an unusual and unfamiliar feeling. Almost as soon as he began walking forward, she felt as if she were beginning to lose her balance. Her legs clenched harder, and she dug her fingers into his thick fur.

  She was still struggling to stay on when Grant started really moving towards the dense trees. His thick, defined muscles moved seamlessly under his fur in a decidedly odd feeling on her legs and arms. She was surprised that as he started running faster, it actually got a little easier to hold onto him, as long as he kept himself level. When he ran down into a valley and jumped over a tree root to lower ground, she had to hold on more tightly. While she could not relax and had to be extra vigilant as to where he was going, she did not always have to hold him hard enough to crush a lesser creature.

  I’m going to hurt more tomorrow than I did today, she thought. After the rigorous activity of the present and previous evening, her muscles were still sore, and they were only going to stiffen even more after all this work to stay upright. It was insane, and it felt strangely satisfying—every ache, every inch she pushed herself. Grant’s pace created a breeze from the still night, and his huge paws hit the ground like thunder. Riding him like this, when he was a lone wolf running, it felt as though he was some kind of creature beyond the world. Some kind of god or a demon—more than anything that reality was supposed to render.

  Her nose and ears were freezing, and the run seemed to deafen and dull her hearing, but she was warm from holding onto Grant. The trees rushed past her, and sometimes the littlest branches or pine cones brushed against her cheek. One or two of them might have scratched her. But it happened too fast for her to notice, and the cold was already stinging on her face. She kept herself close against Grant. His fur and the toughness of his skin shielded her from most of the wood’s reaching arms.

  In so many places, the forest was almost pitch dark. Renee knew that Grant could see or at least knew how to find his way, but she herself could not see much farther than the coarse fur under her nose. She could barely see that her own hair, loose around her neck under the coat, was red.

  Then the dense trees would open into clearings for a momentary break, and the moon would be almost too bright. It was hard to believe that its light was so weak when it hurt her eyes during the times it broke through the darkness.

  She was almost lost in the rhythm—the sounds of Grant’s breathing, the pounding of his feet, the rustle of the foliage and the rasp of needles as Grant disturbed the forest. Then a snarl ripped itself from his throat. Her heart was racing, but it felt like her blood had stopped moving through her veins. She locked all of her limbs around him, which was good because he lunged forward even faster than he had been running, diving on top of a deer and bringing it down to the forest floor. His teeth closed around the throat, crushing the windpipe and piercing the main artery until it spurted up. Renee reacted instinctively, her locked muscles releasing so that she could leap off him and onto the ground, rolling until she hit the base of a tree with her lower back. The impact was like being kicked.

  But she was out of the way, and as she watched Grant ravage the animal until the bleeding slowed, she shivered there under the tree, wrapping her arms around herself and pressing back into the trunk.

  When Grant had finished with the animal’s neck, leaving the head almost completely severed from the rest of it, he started in on the belly, ripping into the intestines and yanking them out. Renee could not even tell whether he was eating anything or just destroying it.

  She was not afraid that Grant was going to turn on her and attack her. She was not morally opposed to him attacking the deer. But it was one thing to know something, to understand it, and another to see it just a few feet away from her, new sounds in her ears—moist tearing and dripping blood, the sounds of Grant’s growls as he tore at the flesh.

  Finally, Grant seemed to settle down, chewing on a part of the deer he’d pulled from inside its body. He lowered himself until his belly was on the ground, haunches bent and eyes half-lidded. He had never looked more like an actual wolf to Renee as he did then. She could smell the blood now. She was no stranger to it—Jake sometimes slaughtered something outside the kitchen or drained blood into the stainless steel kitchen sink. Death was simply a part of life, especially for carnivores, and Renee could accept that. But it made her stomach turn every time, no matter what she thought. There were just some things that she couldn’t help. The shivers that racked her body now that she wasn’t holding Grant was one of them. The fear that made her skin tingle was another. The nausea was simply another symptom of being human. And from where she was sitting right now, she did not know whether that was something she was willing to lose.

  Grant coughed, stepping away from the carcass and changing into human form as he came towards her. She shuddered as his breath flowed over her face, his tongue licking her cheek where blood had struck her. He tried to kiss her, but she shoved him away.

  “Don’t take it personally,” she said, “but I can’t kiss you like that.”

  Grant spread his arms. His entire top half was smeared with the deer’s blood. “It’s part of the package, love.”

  “A part that I don’t have to like,” Renee replied.

  He crawled to her again. “A part that you’ll enjoy as a werewolf.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “No, not…” The repetition of her unspoken yet lingered in the air between them.

  “Every existence has its drawbacks,” Grant whispered. “The skin I’m in, the skin you’re in. The price for strength, power, freedom… It’s a small one. I don’t even call it a price.”

  “Kelly does,” Renee said.

  “Kelly is an exception to the rule, then.”

  The strong smell of the animal’s insides filled her nostrils once again, and she winced.

  “When the thing you once found disgusting tastes very nearly like the thing you’ve been craving all your life, it does not seem like too high a price.”

  “I don’t care that you killed it,” Renee said. She gestured to the pi
le of meat. “I know better than that. Maybe I care that you kill them. Us.”

  “Humans are our natural prey,” Grant explained. “Everything in a werewolf’s instinct tells us that humans smell good and are meant for our teeth.”

  “Then why haven’t you eaten me?” Renee said.

  She could tell that he was biting back a lascivious reply in order to answer her question honestly. “Because we have another instinct—to propagate. This instinct is sometimes closely linked with the impulse to mate, even if procreation isn’t possible that way between us. Procreation requires sparing some humans. You should feel fortunate that I’m affording you any time and choice in the matter.”

  Renee pulled her coat more tightly around her. “Really? And if my answer is no?”

  “Why would it be?”

  “If it is?”

  “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” Grant said.

  “No,” Renee said. “If I say no, does that make me prey to you?”

  Grant tangled his fingers in her hair, caressing the patch of skin under her ear with his mouth. “I don’t know,” he murmured.

  If Grant told her that he didn’t know, Renee had to accept that he didn’t know. There was no reason for him to lie when he felt no compunction to lie to her about other unsavoury aspects of his character and lifestyle. The only trouble about Grant telling the truth was that it did not always reveal everything. Renee knew that a distinct possibility was that she could become prey—he could kill her if she said no. But he could also disregard her decision. Or he could force the decision in some other way. She would have a little bit of protection if she said no in the company of her shapeshifters, but she did not want any of them to be taken down protecting her just because she was mostly unable to protect herself. Even her knife would not be a sure defence if or when it came down to the wire, she thought.

  She was almost sure that if she gave Grant the wrong answer, he would find a way to make her give the right answer. Or get rid of her. She thought that he would feel disappointment, maybe sorry that he had to do it. But he would get over it.

  Grant could get over killing her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Renee had slept outside before, usually in a tent and a sleeping bag. But with the cushion of her coat and half-curled on Grant’s body, the ground was surprisingly comfortable. Or if it wasn’t, she was unable to differentiate between the aches from lying on the ground and the ones from the sex and the ride the night before.

  At first, she did not know what had awakened her. She didn’t ache unless she moved. She wasn’t cold as long as she held onto Grant, who was more than warm enough for the both of them. Then she felt something hot on her belly, wet and sharp through her clothing but not quite piercing her skin. A threat, a hint of something that could be.

  Renee’s eyes flew open. The morning was a deep golden yellow, and there was something surreal about seeing a werewolf in the morning light. She guessed that the wolf, who was a little bigger than Grant’s wolf form, was David. She thought that no other werewolf would dare, and there was a quiet, cruel intelligence in those bright eyes, which were almost sardonic as they stared at her.

  Renee shrugged Grant’s arm from her shoulder and tried not to move her stomach as she reached for her knife. But David had her at an angle where she could not reach it without possibly puncturing herself on his teeth. Which would make her decision for her.

  “Let her go.” It wasn’t Grant. The voice was too high, and Grant would never have spoken so gently to David.

  A pale hand touched Renee’s head, then David’s neck. Renee looked above her to see Kelly staring intently at David.

  “Let her go. Don’t blame her for what you hate about Grant.”

  By now, Grant was beginning to stir.

  “David,” Kelly said sharply. “Release her now.”

  His jaws snapped open as though something had yanked them apart, and the werewolf whimpered in pain as he jerked back. His expression was no longer sardonic. Instead, he looked hurt by what Kelly had done.

  “You know it’s not her you want to hurt, no matter how good she smells to you,” Kelly continued. She stood up and held out her arms to David. “Come to me. Forget him.”

  Kelly gave one last glance behind her, a silent apology and farewell on her lips. Renee nodded. When she settled back into Grant’s arms, she saw that he was awake.

  “Do I need to kill him?” Grant murmured.

  “No.” Kelly had David well under control. Renee pressed her cheek to Grant’s chest and wished she had that same reassurance with him.

  * * * *

  She drove them back to the sanctuary a few days later. Once she reached the highway, it was easier for her to find her way back to Antoine than she thought, and Grant was actually sleeping. She kept the radio on the old rock station anyway. She kind of liked it.

  For a man who had pretty much been running high for the last few days, she wasn’t surprised at just how hard Grant could sleep when he put his mind to it. Even when the sun was in his eyes, he did not budge from his position with the side of his head against the door window. She wished she could say that he looked cute when he was sleeping, or that he looked older or younger. But he simply looked shut down. And she thought that it was healthy for him to shut down now and then. He might actually be healthier if he did it more often. She did not know how werewolves could maintain that kind of intensity without burning out at one point or another.

  She felt relief when they passed through Antoine and headed to the woods on the way to her sanctuary. This was familiar territory—and even though the driving had not been as hard as she’d thought, she felt her muscles relax. The closer she got to her sanctuary, the less small she felt. Everywhere she had gone over the last few days, she had needed Grant right there with her, or Grant to push her beyond almost every boundary, dominating her world. But in her sanctuary, she knew what she was and where she was going. She did not need someone by her side, twenty-four seven. Perhaps it was sad that the only place she felt good—after seeing places and people she would have never dreamed of seeing and doing things she had never dreamed she would do—was home. Or maybe she felt good there because it was home, and home was simply the place you always came back to in order to feel that.

  Grant woke up as they were headed up the long and bumpy driveway.

  “Let me out here,” he said, his voice rough from sleep.

  Renee looked at him quizzically.

  “You’re going to have something of a welcome home party, I’m sure, and they won’t want me to have any part of it. I’ll find my own way back once the streamers clear.”

  “You sure?”

  “They’ll have my hide if I have you for one more second than I’ve already had you this week,” Grant said. “Just slow down and I’ll jump out.”

  She stopped for him anyway. When she put the car in park, Grant reached over and took her face in his hands, kissing her slowly but thoroughly. He was not doing it for anyone’s amusement or notice. Just hers. Just so that she knew what he could make her feel, just so that she knew that some part of her was his. And that no matter how much her own pack wanted her, they could not have all of her. She did not like how he had to have the last word, even if his tongue made her tingle in remembrance of everything that they had done.

  Then he pushed open the door to the truck. He kicked the door shut with his back leg and ran into the woods, still in human form.

  Renee wiped her mouth thoughtfully and continued up the driveway. Some of her shapeshifters would know that she was back, but she was not expecting the fanfare that Grant expected. The memory of Britt on the porch and all the other shapeshifters nowhere to be seen as she’d left with Grant was etched in her memory. A very low part of her would not have been surprised to discover that they had all gone, vanished, moved on, gone back home…anything to abandon her if she was going to betray them like that.

  The rational part of her knew that while it was not impossible, it
was unlikely. Many of the shapeshifters did not have very many other places to go. Britt did not even have another home, as far as Renee knew. For many of the shapeshifters, the sanctuary was their last hope.

  Another low part of her hoped that she wouldn’t be run off her own land. That was slightly more likely than the former scenario.

  As she drove up to the log home, she avoided the free dogs, who were all ecstatic to have her back—it was the longest she had ever been away from her home, as far as Renee could remember. The less controlled ones leapt onto her, and she had to work extra hard to remind them how to behave around her.

  When she looked up, she saw Malcolm crossing from the dog barn to the log home. He raised a hand to her, and Renee felt a wave of relief that made her lightheaded. Even if the others were mad at her, at least one of her own was okay with her.

  Malcolm whistled between his fingers, and most of the dogs reluctantly ran to him. She must have caught him right before a run.

  She pulled her bag from the back of the truck, then headed up to her house.

  The living room was empty when she opened the front door, but she thought she could hear someone in the kitchen. Adjusting the bag on her shoulder, she headed up the staircase to the loft.

  She tossed her suitcase on the bed, and a creak of the floorboards was the only indication that there was someone else there before their hands were on her. One on her mouth, and the others dragging her to the bathroom.

  They did not even bother turning on the light, which meant that everything was almost pitch black because there were no windows in the loft or the bathroom.

  “You smell like him,” Britt’s voice murmured. All on its own in the darkness, even the murmur seemed loud. “You stink of him. You have no idea.”

  The larger hand over her mouth had to move in order to help Britt remove Renee’s clothing.