Chapter 6
BLOSSOM
It’s well past midnight, but I can’t sleep. The woods call to me.
I slip out from under the covers in my childhood bedroom, grab a blanket off the foot of the bed, and wrap it around my shoulders as I tiptoe downstairs to keep from waking Papa. Just because I can’t get any sleep doesn’t mean he should suffer and be drowsy tomorrow.
I need to rest, I remind myself. How else am I going to beat Manny?
The memory of his face from the corn maze comes back to me, and I allow myself a grin as I shuffle through the dark kitchen. The werewolf never should have doubted my devious nature.
The night air is cool against my bare skin, smelling of freshly fallen leaves and carrying the sounds of bats chirping, bugs humming, and the occasional hoot of an owl.
Papa has cushy chairs set up on the screened-in porch, but I don’t settle in one.
The restless energy that has kept me awake draws me through the screen door and across the yard, toward the tree line.
Halfway there, I spy a shadowy form leaning against the thick trunk of a towering oak.
“Manny,” I greet him, knowing immediately who the nighttime visitor is. “You’re being a major creep. Do you lurk like this all the time?”
He lets out a deep, rumbling chuckle that makes me aware I’m not wearing a bra under my T-shirt. I pull my blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“What can I say? I’m a creature of the night.” The last word rides a low growl.
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“No.” The shadows hide his eyes, but I still feel his gaze on me. “I know I can’t scare you. Not that I’d ever want to.”
I scoff, hiking the blanket higher to disguise the way my body shivers in response to him. “Why are you here? Missing your running buddy?”
The wolf tilts his head, as if confused.
I roll my eyes. “You and Heather might have thought you were being stealthy, but I always knew when she sneaked out to meet you in the woods. I used to think you were hooking up.” I fight a smile at his grimace.
“But after she came out, I realized you all must have just been enjoying the night together. Going for a run.”
And damn if I wasn’t wildly jealous of them. From my window, I’d watch Heather shimmy down her trellis, dressed in black and wearing her sneakers. When she reached the ground, my sister would sprint across the yard to the edge of the forest, where a wolf awaited her.
I wanted to follow them. The need to be free in the forest was a painful song in my body.
And I wanted to have a handsome werewolf waiting for me.
I wanted Manny.
But I didn’t get to have him or to sprint through the woods with my sister at my side. Back then, Heather babied me and would have sent me back to the house like a misbehaving child. And Manny was always a surly beast to me.
No one invited me on secret nightly excursions.
So, I stayed in my room and tried to stifle my envy.
“We didn’t go running,” he says, surprising me. “Not together anyway. Heather is more of a climber. She’d scale some tall tree to study the stars, and I’d chase some unlucky rodent.”
They never ran together? Apparently, my imagination got away from me. That seems to happen a lot around Manny Ramirez.
“If you want to go for a run,” he says, “let’s go for a run.”
My body sways toward the trees, ready to take him up on his offer. My mind holds me back.
“Why? So you can prove you would’ve beaten me in the maze today if I hadn’t tied you up?”
Manny leans forward, and I realize I drifted into his personal space at some point. His lips hover close to my ear. “Tie me up whenever you want to.”
All the saliva in my mouth dries up, and I have to clear my throat. The taunting wolf straightens just enough for me to meet his eyes. To see the heated glint in them.
“What do you mean?” I rasp when, really, I want to say, Why are you doing this to me?
Did Heather finally spill the beans on me?
After she came out and introduced Papa and me to her first girlfriend, I realized she wasn’t in love with Manny.
That they weren’t destined to be together.
After that, I guess I got lax about covering up my attraction to him.
She caught me staring at the werewolf one day when he was shirtless and helping Papa haul pumpkins out of The Patch for a large order.
Heather can be relentless when she wants, and my sister badgered me until I admitted that I’d always thought Manny was handsome. Too handsome for his own good. And that I knew he didn’t see me the same way, so I refused to let him know how I felt.
Did she break our sister pact and tell her best friend that I’d had a crush on him the entire time I claimed to loathe everything about him?
I do loathe Manny. Hating the fact that, even while he teases me and growls at me, I want to strip him down, cover him in melted caramel, and lick his chest.
At least, in high school, I could claim adolescent hormones were the issue.
What’s my excuse now? Misfiring horny spell that makes me want the closest asshole?
Whatever the reason, my body still responds to Manny in inappropriate ways. My skin heating in anticipation of his touch. My brain convincing itself that kissing him is the perfect kind of revenge.
Manny reaches out to tug on a lock of my hair before I can swat his hand away. “It means that I want you to truss me up, peel my clothes off with your teeth, and have your witchy way with me.” His devilish grin slowly curls across his lips as I choke on my breath. “But only if you catch me first.”
He’s gone. Turning so fast that he seems to vanish into thin air. But deep in the shadows of the forest, I hear a pained grunt.
He’s changing. The wolf is coming out.
He wants me to chase him when he’s in his wolf form? So I’m guaranteed to lose?
Maybe that’s why he made those suggestive remarks. Because he knows they would never come to fruition.
I grit my teeth, annoyance sparking through my veins that Manny might know about my crush and be using it against me.
Suddenly, I want to catch him more than anything in the world.
I want to toss his body to the ground and strip him like he said.
I want to bind him to the forest floor with thick roots.
Then, I want to leave him there. I want to walk away as he pleads for my forgiveness.
Pajamas aren’t the best for a middle-of-the-night sprint. Neither are bare feet.
At least for someone who isn’t a wood witch.
I bend one knee, then the other. Rubbing my bare soles before twisting my fingers in coaxing gestures.
My power unfurls under my skin, a light-green glow emanating from my pores, and I feel my body respond to the spell.
My feet touch the ground, and the connection is instant.
This is more than my spur-of-the-moment conjuring in the corn maze. My magic is full of intention.
I am one with the earth.
It cannot cut me. Cannot bruise or harm me. Nature is a gentle cradle under my soles.
I don’t know if this will make me any faster, but it’ll keep a stray thorn in my heel from slowing me down.
“Ready or not, here I come,” I mutter, dropping my blanket and taking off into the dark woods at a sprint.
My plan was to listen for the soft, thumping footfalls of a loping wolf, but the moment I start running, the race fades from my mind as I’m overwhelmed by the joy of finally letting myself go wild.
Letting myself run free.
Where I live, there are paths and trails in local parks I can jog on. And I do. But never with true abandon. Never with laughter bubbling from my throat and my arms stretched wide to brush my fingers against the foliage.
I wonder if this is what wood nymphs feel like when they dance through the woods. Those mythics commune with nature in a way I could only hope to achieve. I’ve seen them fully disappear inside trees as easily as stepping into the waters of Lake Galen.
That’s a feat I haven’t managed, but with my hand gestures and a force within my spirit, I can coax the natural world to move and respond to me.
We are friends of a sort, and now, I flow among them.
I’m supposed to chase the wolf, I remind myself.
But I don’t know where to start, and I’m having too much fun, driving myself forward.
I whoop and keep going.
In the next moment, I feel a presence at my back. Imposing, but not threatening.
Just like at the wedding.
Manny is here.
“I’m not chasing you, wolf,” I cry out, my legs pumping, my lungs sucking in the cool night air that smells like damp earth.
I swear I hear a huff, and then there’s the slightest brush at my heels. With a squeak, I step higher, glancing back to find a massive black wolf loping behind me, his head ducked low. He gives a playful snap toward my feet.
“Are you herding me?” I intend for my voice to sound scathing. Instead, I giggle the question.
He offers me a fang-filled grin.
For some reason, I find his playful response hilarious, and I leave a string of chuckles in my wake as I fly forward. Like in the maze, I allow the power of the plants around me to infuse my limbs with extra energy.
The boost makes me faster, but not fast enough to outrun a werewolf. Manny sticks close, sometimes skipping in for another snap, as if he likes the way I hop and laugh.
Then, he slows and lets out a sharp bark of warning. Pointing my gaze forward, I realize there’s a cliff fast approaching.
I more than see it. I feel it. The abrupt ending to the trees.
But I also sense where the forest restarts, far below.
The oaks and pines and yellow woods wait at the base of the cliff for me. Beckoning me toward them. Cheering me on.
I don’t slow down.
Manny barks again, then snarls when I don’t heed his warning. The ground shakes with his pounding paws. But he hesitated for too long. Too late to catch up.
“See you at the bottom!” I shout as the branches in front of me part to reveal the wide expanse of the Chattahoochee National Forest, lit by the half-moon.
My feet push me into a running swan dive, and I scream in pure delight as I free-fall through the air.
An animal’s roar follows my plummet.
But I’m too busy calling to the woods below to concern myself with Manny.
Leaf-covered branches stretch toward me like my father’s arms used to when I jumped from my bunk bed into his waiting hold. And just like then, I’m caught in an abrupt yet cushioned embrace.
“Thank you!” I call to the trees, my green-glowing hands stretched out in thanks.
They shiver their limbs in response, slowly depositing me on the ground. I sit there for a moment, grinning wide and panting. But as my heart rate begins to slow, I realize I’m not done.
I want to keep going.
“Blossom!” My name is bellowed through the trees.
Wow, he made it down fast. And he changed forms.
“Are you running naked through the woods, Manny?” I yell the question while rocking up to my feet.
“Thank the fucking gods.”
I think I hear him groan, but I don’t wait to check, setting off at a fast jog.
Will he turn back to his wolf so he can catch me?
There’s the sound of crashing branches and crunching brush behind me.
Does he even need to change to run as fast as I do?
“Blossom! Get your ass back here!”
I almost pause. Almost. More because of his tone than his words.
He sounds pissed.
The last time I remember Manny getting truly angry was when Alvin Carter spray-painted a gay slur on my sister’s locker. The guy was lucky he was a merman. A human wouldn’t have healed from two broken legs so quickly.
Maybe I shouldn’t have cannonballed off a cliff without warning Manny first. I guess that could scare a guy if he wasn’t properly prepared.
Oh well. It’s done now.
I pick up the pace, heading toward a familiar group of trees that isn’t too far off. They call to me like old friends.
Two steps into the orchard, I’m lifted off my feet.
“Hey!” I yelp, my fingers scrabbling against the strong set of arms wrapped around my waist.
Next I know, my back is on the ground, and there’s a glaring werewolf on top of me, pinning my body in place.
And the answer is, yes, Manny was running through the woods naked in his human form.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he growls.
“That you’re heavier than a boulder.” I jab a finger into his bare side, but he doesn’t flinch.
Truthfully, the man isn’t crushing me. But he’s also an immovable force.
“I’m talking about that stunt you just pulled. You could’ve died.”
I roll my eyes. “I knew the trees would catch me.”
“I didn’t know,” he snarls.
And instead of my anger rising in response to his, I spy the fear in Manny’s eyes, and the sight allows me to soften. Reaching up, I push the wild strands of his hair off his sweaty forehead.
“Poor little wolf. Did I scare you?” I tease gently, waiting for him to respond in kind. To bring us back to what we’ve always been. Two enemies who’ve established a fragile truce because we love the same people.
Instead, Manny’s big body sinks closer to mine, his shoulders curving, as if to shield me. “I was fucking terrified.” His face presses against my neck, lips on my skin as he speaks. “I think I could live with you leaving me. But I wouldn’t survive losing you, Blossom Fernmore.”
Once again, I’m left shocked by his words, blurting out the only question I can manage. “What does that mean?”
Manny presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my racing pulse before answering in a calm voice, “I want you.”
This makes no sense. None at all. He’s talking complete nonsense. Maybe he dived off that cliff after me and whacked his head on the landing.
Whatever the cause, I’m not about to put up with his teasing.
Or these neck kisses that threaten to unravel me.
“Manuel Ramirez.” I’m proud of the stern tone I manage despite how breathless I suddenly am.
“Don’t call me that,” he rumbles, his lips brushing over my ear, hot exhale making me shiver. “Only my uncle uses my full name. I hate it.”
“Fine,” I snap, using annoyance to cover the effect he’s having on my body. “Manny. I’ll call you Manny.”
“No.” His voice is rough yet gentle. “Call me your wolf.”
“My wolf?” I try to keep my voice hard, but it quivers. “You’ve never wanted to be mine.”
Suddenly, Manny braces himself on his elbows, raised far enough to meet my eyes, his sharp gaze boring into mine.
“I’ve always wanted to be yours. Too much.”
I shake my head. This is a game. It has to be.
But I find myself repeating my earlier question, this time with a tinge of desperation. “What does that mean?”
“It’s not complicated, my infuriating little wood witch.” He cups my face with one hand, tracing the curve of my cheek with his thumb. “I want you. I want inside you. And I want you to want me.”
My body flushes with heat, every inch of me straining toward the wolf and his tempting words.
Words I’ve never admitted I’ve always wanted to hear.