4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
RICKY
E very time Jason took off a piece of clothing, he tossed it onto the back stoop beside me. When his jeans landed with the thud of his cellphone in his pocket, I realized how much an app was not the most ideal way to keep track of someone who got naked whenever they went full monster.
Something Whitmore would want me to tell him.
Like a spy.
Or a traitor.
I hadn’t agreed to anything! But while Whitmore had tried convincing me to convince Jason to submit to testing—which I admitted I wanted as well, just in my time—he’d also done a very good job of planting seeds of doubt.
“The longer Jason waits, the more dangerous it could be for him and others.”
“If something extreme happens, the consequences will be out of my hands.”
“You might be the only person who can convince him to do the right thing.”
“Could he ever forgive himself if he hurt someone? Hurt you? Hurt his mother?”
Jason’s underwear landed beside me. That did a good job of helping me forget about Whitmore. There were neighbors, but the backyard was perfectly secluded. I hoped Sandy wasn’t looking out of any windows right now, but otherwise, it was just us and the woods.
“Okay,” Jason’s voice echoed from nearby, deep and growly like I’d never heard it before, with the kind of base you could feel in your heartbeat. “Come find me.”
I spun around. I couldn’t see anything but the woods at first. It was late afternoon. Not late enough for the sun to be low yet, but with the darkening clouds and the density of the trees, everything was in shadow.
I stood from the porch, scanning the tree line for signs of Jason. It was like hide and go seek but with a hornier outcome than grade school if I won. After all, we had agreed to some tat.
“Jason?” I entered the woods using the nearby deer trail, looking left and right, deeper into the trees where I expected him to be hiding.
It was a cool day, fifties like Sandy had told us, and it felt like it, especially without my jacket on. Once the wind was blocked by the trees, it seemed warmer, but enough of a breeze still came through to waft up the scent of lemongrass.
Maybe the added warmth was from the heat of Jason’s eyes on me. I could feel him watching, almost like being in the woods in Edgewind with Jason’s monster friend Cael watching us. My arm hair prickled at the thought and a shiver raced through me, but knowing it was Jason this time erased any fear.
Even when he growled.
I kept walking, trying to pinpoint the sound, the sense of him. About the time the path behind me seemed like it was closing up from how deep I had walked, I knew where Jason was seconds before I heard the crack of a stick to my left.
I turned. Even shadowed, hidden between trees, I could see him, a hulking mass compared to his usual figure. Only after our eyes met did he step onto the path.
He certainly looked like a werewolf. He was covered in gray fur, with wolf-like feet, ears, claws, long canines on both upper and lower teeth, and glowing yellow eyes instead of his usual blue. His face wasn’t quite a snout, just a little snout- like , with a sort of leathery black wolf nose. He was otherwise very human in his face.
I must have looked appropriately awed more than scared—I wasn’t scared—because Jason advanced until he stood right in front of me. He had always been taller than me, but now there was an added foot to that height, no matter how hunched he tried to make himself.
“Well?” Jason grumbled, fiddling with his claws like an adorably shy Bigfoot.
He wasn’t dangerous. He just needed practice keeping his inner not -wolf in check, and I was more than happy to help him with that.
And to convince him that testing was the best way to learn what he was.
“Wow,” I said, looking over the full scope of him. He was naked, yeah, but I couldn’t see his, um, tat. That was hidden. Inward maybe, sheathed the way a normal wolf’s would be? I could see the part of his fur where I imagined it peeking out to say hello. “Hm… I have this sudden urge to watch Twilight .”
“ Dude .” Jason pawed the ground like a childish stomp.
I laughed. Yep. This was still Jason.
“Not cool, man,” he said. “Those guys don’t even look like me. They turn into regular wolves!”
I cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Not that I’ve watched the movies!”
This time, I took a step closer, now that the tension was alleviated, though there were still a few butterflies in my stomach. The good kind! The kind that made me really excited to touch him. I reached out, hand flat forward, ready to press to his sternum and feel fur.
Jason sprang to my right and darted behind me.
I whirled to catch him.
Gone.
He was fast .
A snap of teeth whirled me around again and I spotted Jason dropping to all fours as he leapt behind a tree.
“Seriously? You wanna play fetch?” I called.
“Gotta catch me first!” He bounded away from me.
I gave chase. He could have left me in the dust whenever he wanted, but he stayed just out of reach, zigging left, and zagging right, until I wasn’t sure whether we had gone in circles or not, but I pushed on, trying to think of ways to get ahead of him.
Only maybe ahead wasn’t the right tactic.
I stopped, looking for a large enough tree, and when I spotted one, I ducked behind it. As best I could, I stilled my breathing, listening for sounds of rustling, bounding, growling, and for the sense I got whenever Jason was near. I knew he approached from my right long before I heard him sniff the air for a lead on me.
I flung out my arm to grab hold of whatever part of him was nearest, clutching a furry bicep, and pulled—
“Oof!” The wind knocked from me as I was thumped backward. Spun? Thrown? I was against a different tree and not entirely sure how I’d gotten there, when I looked up to see Jason looming over me and pinning me to its trunk.
His breathing was heavy, with a low growl rumbling in his throat. If Little Red had met this sort of wolf in the woods, I understood why she’d succumb.
Jason let go of my shoulders but stayed close. When I reached like before to press my hand to his chest, he didn’t pull away. Real wolves in the wild couldn’t possibly feel like this. His chest fur was downy soft, like on a puppy or rabbit. It was whiter there too, up under his chin and lower down his belly. Did he have a tail, I wondered? I hadn’t seen one yet.
I ran my hand up to Jason’s cheek, and he leaned against it with a nuzzle and rumble in his throat. Then I brought my fingers back down, lower between his pecs, between the grooves of his hips, wondering what it might take to get his tat to show itself.
Jason’s hand clamped over mine before I could find out. Suddenly, his hand was barely clawed, with fur having retreated from most of it, leaving bare-skinned fingers and only slightly pointed nails. The rest of him had similarly reduced to halfway changed. He still had both sets of sharpened eyeteeth, tufts of fur on his pointed ears, and his eyes remained yellow.
“I didn’t know you could be half-turned like this,” I said, letting him hold my hand low there against his belly.
“Sometimes. Easier than being fully human. That’s why a stray fang or claw tends to pop up.” His voice still had a deeper base to it, just a little less gravely. “At least when I’m around you, it’s hard to be human.” He grimaced as he admitted it, like he thought it would scare me.
“You know it’s actually kinda sexy that you have trouble controlling yourself around me.” I flexed my fingers against his skin.
“Not if I hurt you.”
“You won’t.” This was the last moment when I wanted to think about Whitmore again and all his warnings, so I pushed thoughts of him aside and everything else we didn’t know. “Even if you do, I can handle a little prick.”
We immediately erupted into laughter.
“ Hey .” Jason pouted, even though he’d laughed too. “It’s not little.”
“I know. I peeked, remember?” I wanted to peek now, wondering how much wolf versus man he was below the waist after so much of his fur had retreated, but he’d moved in too close for me to know even if I did dart my eyes down.
“Does that mean I get a peek now?” Jason asked.
“Maybe.”
I was pinned to a tree by a very hot werewolf, even if he wasn’t a werewolf, and I didn’t mind the feeling of fangs pressed against my lips one bit. As Jason kissed me deeper, he led with his tongue, slow and careful around his sharpened canines.
The hand over mine moved to wrap around my waist. I clung to Jason’s waist too, feeling where his skin became fur. It was still downy soft and there was enough of it lining his edges to dig my fingers into. His tongue was… thicker? Longer? He was still taller than he normally was too, completely engulfing me as he pressed me to the tree.
If his dick had been inward and hidden before, I sure felt it now, free to the elements, and impressive enough that I would have made a ‘something in your pocket’ joke if he was wearing any clothes. It felt bigger than I remembered, pressing into my hip, but then, I hadn’t seen it hard.
The first few drops of rain started to fall on us.
“Jason,” I whined, but he must have taken that for stop , because he tried to pull away. “ No .” I tightened my grip on him and licked back into his mouth.
Jason kissed me back harder, pinned me to the tree firmer, and growled between our mouths with a stutter of his hips. “Mm… if we keep this up, you’re gonna see a lot more of me than you bargained for.”
“Aren’t you supposed to see me now?” I looked down, so Jason would look too when I started to undo my jeans. He loomed above me, almost pressing his forehead to the trunk of the tree, as he watched. “Or maybe… feel me?” I finished drawing down the zipper.
“But my claws—”
“I trust you.” I took Jason’s hands to bring them, pointed nails and all, to the space where my zipper parted. “We need practice, right? And if you’re worried, you can make the claws go away. I know you can. You can control yourself.”
His hands shook, but I didn’t hesitate from pressing the pads of his fingers to my stomach, even with them half-clawed. I held them there until I felt the presence of his nails recede, then I drew one hand, his right hand, down into the opening.
Jason’s head snapped to the side, wolf returning with a growl and flash of his eyes—and the return of claws that nicked me below my belly button.
“Ah!” I hissed. “What is it?”
Thunder rolled overheard, making Jason flinch. Courtesy of his Monster Match profile, I now knew that he didn't like storms, but he’d been startled before the thunder.
“Something’s in the woods.” His ears twitched, listening for more of whatever he had heard or sensed. When he looked at me, he sniffed, catching the scent of blood, I imagined, given it brought his eyes down to where he’d cut me.
“It’s okay.” I kept hold of Jason’s hands that he tried to lurch away. “It’s okay . No worse than the scratch of a tree branch. You don’t need to pull away if that happens. I can survive scrapes and bruises. It’s not going to change how I feel about you. You’re… you. No matter how different you can look sometimes.”
Jason was still back to full wolf mode, so tall, so feral looking, but he wasn’t feral. The same Jason was in his eyes, even if they were yellow. “Okay.” He nodded, as a harder rain began to fall, but not enough to drench us, since we were protected by the canopy of trees. “If it is ever too much, ever , tell me. Maybe instead of hands I should try using my tongue.”
He dropped, right to his fully furred knees, and swiped his definitely thicker and longer tongue up my cut.
A scream pierced the trees like the caw of a bird.
Both our heads snapped to the side. That wasn’t just a scream. I felt something now too. There was an energy in the woods, a pulse that hadn’t been there before, at least not this strong, potent enough that the hair on my arms and all of Jason’s fur stood on end.
Another crack of thunder rolled through, and though Jason flinched again, he stood, growling toward where we’d heard the scream.
“Go,” I said, doing up my jeans. “Someone might be in trouble. I’m right behind you.”
Jason met my gaze for one moment, two, and then bounded away as swiftly as when he’d disappeared from my sight the first time. It wasn’t easy to keep up when he was actually trying to outrun me. I did see a tail though, and Jason’s ass bent over while running on all fours was a sight I wouldn’t soon forget.
I pushed to go faster and catch up, made no easier by the increasing rain. I watched for signs of Jason’s path through the trees. He’d left plenty for me to follow between bent branches and the disruption of dirt from his paws. The scream hadn’t been too far away. We had to be close. One more turn and dart around a tree and—
Caution tape. I would have run right through it if it wasn’t already fluttering to the ground from Jason having beaten me there. The area the caution tape cordoned off was no larger than ten-by-ten. Jason stood in the center of it, where the last fizzles of light from something were dissipating like sparks from a malfunctioning machine—or a lightning strike. But we hadn’t seen any lightning touch down, and there was no machine, only empty air.
As soon as the sparks were gone, there was this sound like suction or a pop, and the strange feeling that had made my hair stand up was gone. The heavier rain and sounds of thunder were already fading, just a spurt of a spring storm.
There was no one else here, but judging by Jason’s sniffing, he could smell whoever should be here just without a new trail to follow. Most unsettling was the piece of cloth at his feet.
Snatching up the fabric with his claws was swift. The cloth had been fluttering too, disrupted from whatever had been here, just like the caution tape. If it had been any other fabric, I could have given a million guesses as to where it came from, but this was part of a shirt, red and black flannel with buttons on it. This was part of something someone had been wearing.
But whoever had screamed had vanished.
“Someone was here. They were right here .” Jason turned to me, clutching the cloth.
“Did you see them?”
“No, but I saw a bunch of light that shouldn’t be able to hover in midair.”
I looked behind me again at the caution tape and knelt to lift one of its ends. The scientists I’d be working with told me they would explain the full scope of our project in person tomorrow, since it was classified and of, as they’d put it, “mysterious origin.”
The caution tape, besides the word CAUTION, also said:
PROPERTY OF ELDER RIDGE RESEARCH FACILITY
“I have a sneaky suspicion that this has something to do with what I’ll be studying.” I lifted the tape for Jason to see. “I better call that new team of mine, huh?”
“Now,” Jason growled, returning to his half-turned state, which made the whole thing scarier, because his human face looked spooked as hell. “This is the same spot where I was attacked.”