Chapter 10 Moab #2
I thought about it. “Soldier. Then mechanic. Then nothing.”
She laughed, a genuine sound that startled us both. “You’re terrible at nothing. I’ve never seen anyone fail at being invisible so spectacularly.”
I shrugged. “Some of us are born to be seen.”
She sobered, eyes dropping. “And some of us are born to hide.”
I wanted to argue, to tell her she was wrong, but the way she said it left no room.
We huddled closer to the fire, the cold creeping in around our ankles. The smoke found every flaw in the chimney and doubled back, making my eyes water. Scarlette leaned into me, her head heavy on my shoulder.
“It’s going to get colder,” she said. “You can leave if you want.”
“Not happening,” I said, voice firm.
She looked up, and for a second, I saw something raw in her expression, a flicker of hope fighting with the usual defeat.
“I mean it,” I said. “We stick together.”
She closed her eyes. “Then we’ll need more heat.”
I shifted, unzipped the jacket, and pulled her in, so that we were chest to chest, breath mingling in the narrow gap between. Her hair smelled of woodsmoke and old sweat, but it was the best thing I’d smelled in weeks.
Our legs tangled in the straw, the press of her body sending a thrill up my spine that had nothing to do with survival. I tried to keep my hands respectful, but she didn’t seem to mind when my palm slid along her waist, fingers splayed wide.
“You always this warm?” she whispered, voice half-asleep.
“Only when I want to be,” I said.
She smiled against my throat, lips barely touching skin. “Show off.”
We lay there for a long time, the fire shrinking to coals, the cold held at bay by our combined heat.
When I woke, her hand was on my chest, fingers spread wide, as if anchoring me to this world. The storm outside had died, leaving the woods silent and waiting. I turned, watched her sleep, and knew that whatever came next, it would be easier with her beside me.
***
By the time the second storm hit, the hut was cold as a crypt, every seam of the wall whistling with wind and night.
Scarlette sat hunched in the glow of a stubby candle, her legs tucked under, one foot bare, the other bandaged in a modern art of gauze and comfrey leaves.
The fire was dead but for a single red coal, and the air was thick with the smell of burned fat and the raw, damp musk of animal. Our animal, mostly.
I watched her from the pallet, where I’d set up camp with the battered coat as a blanket and my boots under my head.
She had the look of someone measuring the silence, testing its weight.
I thought about what to say, how to tell her that in another world I’d be halfway to Mexico by now, but here I was, tied to a little hut and a girl with more scars than sense.
She spoke before I could. “Did you ever have a family, where you come from?” She didn’t look up, just stared at the blue flicker in the candle and waited.
I took a second to work through the question, like maybe she was building to a trick. “Had one. Didn’t last.”
She nodded, as if this was only confirmation of something she’d always known. “It’s better, then,” she said. “Better to have none than to have one that wants you dead.”
The words felt like a punch, but I kept my face neutral. “Is that why you run?” I asked. “Because you think they’ll kill you?”
She drew her knees tighter. “Not kill, exactly. Just erase. Turn me into something I’m not.
A wife. A mother. A secret.” She glanced up at me, the lines of her face going sharp in the waxy light.
“They say the church can forgive any sin, so long as you confess. But what do you do if your sin is that you want to live?”
I sat up, boots hitting the dirt. My own sins were legion, but not one of them felt as sharp as that.
“Where I’m from,” I said, “they tell you to suck it up, or else. You learn to hide the wild parts. Make them into something useful. Or you end up in a box, or a cage, or dead in a ditch.” I flexed my hands, the wolf tattoo leering up at me in blue-black.
“But at least there, nobody pretends it’s for your own good. ”
She stared at my arm, then reached over, her fingers tracing the line of the ink. Her touch was careful, almost reverent. “They have legends of men like you, here. Sometimes the stories are warnings. Sometimes they’re wishes.”
“And what about women like you?” I asked, trying to keep it light. “Any stories for them?”
She smiled, but it was the kind of smile that belonged on a knife.
“Only the kind that end in fire.” Her eyes stayed fixed on my hand, on the way the veins and ink twisted together.
She squeezed my palm so tight I felt the bones flex.
“I’m not going back,” she said, voice flat. “Not even if it means dying out here.”
I didn’t argue. She’d already made that choice.
I reached into my jacket, found the flask, and passed it over. She took a long pull, wiped her mouth, and passed it back. I felt the burn as it went down, warming nothing but my resolve.
We could have left it at that. But I wasn’t built for silence, not when the world was closing in. I wanted to say something real, so I did.
“You’re not alone in this,” I said. “If you want to run, I’ll run with you. If you want to fight—” I shrugged, “I’m pretty good at fighting.”
She laughed, the sound sudden and sharp. “Are you good at running?”
“Better than you’d think,” I said.
She glanced at the door, at the black square of night behind it. “They’ll hunt us, you know. Even if we leave tonight.”
“Let them,” I said. “They won’t catch us.”
She seemed to like that. She stood, limped over, and dropped onto the pallet beside me, the air between us charged with static. She pressed her side to mine, the heat of her body a shock in the cold room.
“Tell me about your legends,” she said. “The ones about men who turn into wolves.”
I shrugged, but the old stories spilled out. “Some say it’s a curse. Some say it’s a blessing. Depends on whether the wolf eats you or saves your life.”
She listened, head on my shoulder. “And you? Which are you?”
I thought about the taste of blood in my mouth, the hunger that was never quite gone, the way her skin felt under my hands.
“Both,” I said, and she nodded, as if that answered everything.
The candle burned lower. Scarlette traced the lines of my tattoo with her fingernail, slow, careful.
“If I could change, would you still want me?” she whispered.
I laughed, surprised. “If you could change, I’d never let you go.”
She sat up then, and there was something fierce in her eyes, something that didn’t belong to this world or the last.
“Then watch,” she said.
She pulled a handful of herbs from the pouch at her waist—yarrow, plantain, the bitter comfrey.
She crushed them between her palms, the smell sharp and green in the air.
She muttered words I didn’t know, words that sounded like a song but felt like a warning.
The candle guttered, shadows climbing the walls.
Then she bit down on her own wrist, hard enough to draw blood, and smeared it across the bandaged ankle. I watched, half-horrified, half-aroused, as she pressed her palm to the floor and arched her back, the muscles standing out in her neck.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the air changed, electric and thin. Her limbs started to twist, the joints popping as the bones shifted underneath. Her eyes went wide, lips drawn back from her teeth.
I wanted to help her, to do something, but she shook her head, wild and defiant.
“Stay back,” she gasped.
I did. I sat there and watched as her body shrank in on itself, her spine curving, the skin along her arms and legs going silver with hair.
Her face pulled forward, nose darkening, eyes going gold and bright in the candlelight.
She shuddered, then let out a sound that was halfway between a sob and a growl.
Her dress tore along the shoulders, and what was left of it fell away, leaving her naked, the fur spreading over every inch.
She collapsed onto the floor, the transformation complete. Where Scarlette had been, now there was a wolf—small, lithe, but unmistakably her. The eyes, when they found me, were the same as before, but clearer, less burdened.
She padded over, circled me, then sat back on her haunches, tongue lolling in what I swore was a smile.
I didn’t know what to do, so I followed her lead.
I let the wolf inside out.
It was easier this time, less pain, more instinct.
The bones knew where to go, the muscles remembered the way.
The skin split, not with agony, but with a rush of relief, as if I’d been holding my breath for years.
My hands became paws, my teeth grew long and sharp.
The world went sharper, every sound and scent a note in a symphony I’d only ever heard through a wall.
I stood, shook the dust from my fur, and met her eyes.
She darted toward the door, pawing at it, and I followed.
Together, we burst out into the snow. The night was blue and cold, the moon a silver coin above the trees.
We ran, she quick and darting, me heavy and sure.
We crashed through the undergrowth, leapt over fallen logs, and chased each other in dizzying circles.
The smells were overwhelming and consisted of moss, rot, and the faint copper tang of distant blood. The cold on my tongue was delicious, the snow in my fur a new kind of pleasure. We ran until our bodies burned, then ran some more.
She led me, always just out of reach, her tail a white banner in the dark. I chased, loving the chase, loving her for making me work for it.
At the river, she stopped, drank, then spun and tackled me, teeth bared, but not in anger. We tumbled, rolled, bit, licked, and nipped at each other, rough and wild.
When we returned to the hut, the storm had passed. We changed back, slowly, painfully, but with laughter echoing in the rafters.
Scarlette remained on all fours and crawled away, looking back, eyes an invitation. I crawled toward her, sniffing the air, sniffing her ass, sniffing her cunt when she spread her legs. We were no longer wolves, but we might as well have been,
I licked at her cunt, and as I did, she slid down to her elbows, ass high.
She whined, shivered beneath me, and pushed her ass higher, tailbone twitching like she wanted to wag it.
There was no room in the world for language, no space for thought—just the soft fur between her legs, the taste of her, and the need that pulsed through my whole body like a fever.
She rocked back against my face, bold and greedy, grinding herself on my mouth until I had to grab her hips to keep her from bucking away.
Her skin was hot, the muscles under it tensed and ready to run, but she didn't run.
She stayed and took what I gave, clawing at the straw, panting in harsh little bursts.
I felt every line of her vibrating with need, every tremor a message I didn't need to read to understand.
I shoved my face against her, my tongue lapping at her clit, my nose buried between her ass cheeks, pressing against her puckered hole.
She groaned and covered the scream working its way to her mouth, her climax violent.
I grabbed her ass and held her in place, shifting my tongue higher, plunging into her ass.
She shook again, a second wave overtaking the first. I knew then she’d never been taken this way, much less pleased.
Spent and sweaty, Scarlette glanced back as I squatted behind her, my cock throbbing from both want and the need to release.
I slid into her cunt, the hole wet and warm.
I groaned, hands bracing on her hips, the tight wet heat welcoming and overwhelming at once.
The world shrank to that sensation, the snap of my pelvis against the backs of her thighs, the animal pull of her body drawing me in deeper.
Scarlette twisted, planting her face in the furs, and braced hard as I moved inside her, fast, knowing I wouldn’t last. I held nothing back, fucked her like I was made for it, like my bones would snap if I tried to resist.
She came again before I did, her body going rigid, her cunt clenching so hard I saw stars. When I followed, it was with a short, stupid howl, a sound I’d never made in bed or anywhere else. Maybe I’d always been part wolf; maybe it just took the right woman to bring it out.
Afterward, we lay side by side, chests heaving, the cold biting at the sweat along our backs. She rested her head on my arm, hair spilled across my chest in a tangle that smelled of victuals and wildness and a little bit of blood. I wanted to say something, but the words felt like too much.
She beat me to it, the way she always did. “Did you mean it?” she said, her voice so small I almost missed it under the wind creaking the boards loose above us.
“Mean what?” I asked, tracing my finger down her back, not sure if I wanted her to answer.
“That you’d never let me go.”
I pulled her closer, hand flat over the bandaged ankle. “I meant it.” My voice sounded like somebody else’s, rough and unsteady. “We’re in this together now, for as long as you can stand me.”
She laughed, exhausted, but the sound was honest. “Wolves are loyal,” she said, and then she fell asleep, as if it had been decided.
I’m not sure why I did it, but I forced myself to shift again, becoming the wolf. I moved closer to her, practically on top of her, the warmth of my fur drawing a sigh from her lips.
We were witch and wolf.