22. She Dreams Of You
TWENTY-TWO
SHE DREAMS OF YOU
Jack
T he urge to sneeze woke me. With every snotty ah-choo, my head throbbed like a bitch, my mouth felt like I’d eaten sand, and …
Fuck, I smelled like her. It clung to my clothing, to my stubbly beard. My skin was coated in her.
I groaned as the vague memories flitted through my brain. Of collapsing, then waking to see her … in her tiger form. And I’d thought she was fucking impressive.
And then I’d drunkenly crawled onto her back.
“Fuck me,” I mumbled. Had I actually told her that I’d dreamed of riding her?
Fucking God. I had.
And finally you admit that you want her , the monster said slyly.
Oh, you’re back.
I hissed as I rolled onto my stomach, only then realizing that I was lying on a mattress.
You missed me.
I grunted, sitting up. I was a little stiff, but otherwise pain-free.
I was kind of hoping I’d gotten rid of you for good, I told the monster. I let my eyes rove through the gloom. Where the fuck was I? A cabin? My chest tightened as I searched.
Liar , the monster crowed. By the way, she’s in the corner. Since you’re very anxiously searching for her.
I fucking hate you.
But I scanned the corners, eyes adjusting to the darkness. And there she was, bundled in the darkest corner of the room. The knot in my chest loosened slightly.
The monster chuckled.
I scowled. I don’t want her getting caught and taken back to that fucked up place, that’s all, I informed it grouchily.
The monster’s silence was mocking.
I got to my feet, wincing at the tightness in my legs and back.
How long had I been asleep? I stretched, my tendons crackling from disuse. I needed to piss. I needed to drink about thirty gallons of water. I needed to work out where the fuck we were.
But something drew me in the direction of that dark shape in the corner.
She was curled up into a tight ball, her forehead against her knees, her hair falling like a curtain, shielding her face from the world. I crouched beside her, my hand going to her head, touching gently.
I’m just checking to see if she’s okay , I told myself.
The monster snorted.
Her hair was tangled from our ordeal. But her scent was strong this close, wafting up from her hair like perfume. Like a fucking drug.
It wasn’t fair that her smell could make me feel like this.
She took a deep breath, her head nuzzling against my palm, her tight posture relaxing a little. I sucked in a breath, but she didn’t stir again. Her breathing was the slow, even pattern of deep sleep.
She held onto her shift while she carried our unconscious ass on her back for miles, over hours. She got us here to safety. She’s exhausted , the monster told me, and the tenderness in its tone warmed my chest, an echo of its feelings. I rubbed angrily at the spot.
Your feelings. Not mine, I informed it.
Our feelings.
Fucking nope.
But I couldn’t leave her there, folded uncomfortably in the corner. I scooped her up, gently tucking my arms behind her back and under her knees, and straightened, carrying her to the shoddy mattress, which was still better than a cold corner.
Her nose nestled in against my chest, and she moaned softly in her sleep. I settled her on the mattress as quickly as possible and backed hurriedly away, rubbing at my chest again for a completely different reason.
A fucking terrifying one.
We need her! You feel it just as I do , the monster said slyly. Look at this space. Once she’s recovered, we’ll have the time … and the privacy … to take her. Fuck. Bite—
Fuck right off, you pervert!
She curled back into that tight little ball, her head tucked in, her knees drawn up. Defensive. Small. I flexed my fingers, trying to flick the urge out of me … the urge to climb onto the mattress with her, to curl up around her. To be the thing that protected her while she was vulnerable. While she was recovering from protecting me.
I stopped, turning sharply and heading for the door. Outside, the night air was cold enough that my breath fogged as I exhaled.
Take a piss. Find some water. Check the cabin for anything that might be remotely helpful to work out where the fuck we were. Try to work out how to get out of here.
These were the things I needed to focus on. Not spooning with her.
I peered around. We were in a forest clearing. Long grass swayed, bleached silver by the moon overhead. Okay, so we were far enough north that, if I hadn’t completely lost track of time and it was early August still, it was cold enough for my breath to fog. Canada. Alaska.
Fucking Siberia, for all I knew.
Shifters have been here , the monster informed me. I stopped halfway to the edge of the porch, heart hammering.
How hard should I freak out about this?
The scent is old. There are none nearby right now.
Jesus, don’t fucking scare me like that! You know how my last run-in with Shifters in the wild ended, I grouched, heading to the edge of the porch and undoing the panel in my jumpsuit. The one that I’d assumed, until very recently, was just for pissing.
Nope. It was for depraved sexual experiments.
I shuddered, aiming my stream off into the grass and trying not to think about … her … on her knees, none of her body exposed to me … except her warm pussy …
I like this train of thought , the monster chuckled.
I growled, tucking my dick away and heading back inside. Well, don’t. She’s been doing that over and over again, for who the fuck knows how many dudes! So stop fantasizing about something that couldn’t be anything but traumatic for her!
The monster was silent. Chastised.
I couldn’t help feeling just a little bit smug about that as I headed towards the sink in the primitive kitchen. Maybe it was on tank water? I fucking hoped so.
The tap ran with clear water immediately. With a thankful groan, I stuck my head under the faucet, drenching my face and hair, filling my mouth, rinsing, and spitting the parched feeling away before guzzling greedily.
It quenched my thirst, but my stomach rumbled emptily.
Fuck.
What were we going to eat?
I turned off the tap, rummaging through the cupboards. Empty. Not so much as an old packet of Saltines or a dusty protein bar.
We can hunt for her , the monster informed me. We can protect her, and feed her … and bite her and fuck her, and Join her.
Jesus fucking Christ, you don’t let up, do you?
Everything will be better for her … for us … once we Join. You cannot deny this.
I can. I do deny it.
I scanned the room. Aside from the mattress and the tiny corner kitchen, there was a small table with two folding chairs and a small chest of drawers. A stone fireplace with some bare remnants of a long-ago fire in it. Against one wall, there was a big tin bathtub. I peered at it dubiously. There were gun racks on the wall above it, but they were all empty.
A hunting cabin?
A hunting cabin that hadn’t been used for a long ass time.
A hunting cabin owned by some dude who really liked baths.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. What mattered was finding something that could help us work out where the hell we were. A map would be fucking great.
A satellite phone with full-charge would be even better.
A truck with a full tank of gas … now I was fantasizing wildly, even as I peered through the window above the kitchen bench to see if there might be one conveniently parked outside.
There wasn’t.
I sighed, turning back to the chest of drawers. The only place anything useful might still be hiding in this shithole.
The top drawer held a very old booklet of matches and a couple of yellowed candle stumps that looked like we’d be lucky if we got ten minutes of light out of them. But the matches might come in handy if we collected some kindling to light the fire.
In the second was a dubious-looking penknife. It was a bit rusty, but when I flicked it open, the blade moved smoothly and seemed sharpish. I fumbled around in the back of the drawer, my hands meeting something spindly. I tugged it out, then threw it across the room with a yelp. A rat skeleton.
The monster chortled. I scowled, glancing over to the mattress. She hadn’t woken.
The last drawer had a dusty deck of cards.
I could have laughed as I grabbed them out and tossed them onto the table. At least we could entertain ourselves while we waited to starve to death. Or be tracked down by Baxter and his minions.
I can think of a much better way to pass the time than cards , the monster murmured.
I’m sure you can , I scowled back, collapsing into one of the creaky chairs, turning the card box over and over in my hands . Won’t be happening.
I went to tuck the matches into my pocket when I felt the crinkle of paper. I tugged it out.
The letter.
Are you going to open it? the monster asked. I shook my head, shoving it into the still-open bottom drawer and jamming it closed again. I had enough shit on my plate without opening the can of worms that was Danish Shifter Daddy.
There was a creak of movement from the mattress. The air filled with her scent.
Go to her , the monster urged. I gritted my teeth and ignored it, getting to my feet.
What are you doing? the monster asked as I headed for the door.
No time like the present to try and work out where the fuck we are. It’s not like we can just play house here forever.
The monster didn’t answer, and for that, I was grateful.
Between the gibbous moon and my Shifter eyesight, I could easily make a circuit around the cabin, giving it the once over. The timber it was made from was silvery with age but seemed sturdy. There was a woodpile to one side of the porch, which looked like it hadn’t been touched in forever.
I found the water tank around the back, a cylindrical, metal thing. I knocked on the side. Full. Another thing to be grateful for. Even better, there was an outdoor shower. I would definitely be making use of that. But perhaps in daylight. When the sun could dry my skin since there was nothing even remotely resembling a towel in this hovel.
I looked down at my jumpsuit. Crusted with blood and grime, flapping in the breeze at the back where the fucking wings had split it. The thought of climbing back into that after showering was fucking disgusting. But what was the alternative? Washing it, then walking around naked while I left it out to dry?
I’m sure Seven would fucking love that.
You’d be right, the monster informed me belligerently.
I’m just gonna pretend that you don’t exist for now.
Beside the shower was a large gas bottle, also close to full, and what looked like a stupidly old boiler. Copper pipes snaked away from it through the wall. Probably heading for the bathtub? Jesus, the random hunter dude who’d inhabited this cabin last really liked his creature comforts.
Blossom might like a hot bath , the monster suggested.
I choked back a laugh. One, stop calling her that. Two, yeah, the first thing she’s going to be thinking when she wakes up after having escaped a maniac trying to force me to rape her is, ‘Gee, I’d really love to soak in some warm water right about now.’
Never mind that I was suddenly craving hot water and fucking soap. Which wasn’t even remotely helpful right now. I tried to make a mental list of what our next steps needed to be.
Get out of this forest, find a town. Call Blaire. Work out how to get back to civilization. Then we could worry about warm baths.
And what to do about the parentals back at Taiga.
But what if Baxter had been lying about Blaire? What if she wasn’t on the outside? What if she’d been locked up in another wing of that fucked up facility, being fed the same bullshit as me about being let out?
No. That wouldn’t be possible. Roman would never have let that happen. Unless he hadn’t managed to make it back to her in time from his stupid little jaunt that had caused her so much pain.
The dick.
Fuck. I knew nothing. Except I was stuck in a cabin with a woman my monster wanted me to hole up with and screw for the rest of eternity. We were fuck knows where, with no idea how far we were from anything … with no food, no way to navigate out, and no idea who on the outside we could trust.
My mind flitted to the envelope, crumpled and battered, in that drawer inside. I didn’t want to read it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But it reminded me that maybe there was someone we could trust on the outside.
I’d try Blaire first. But if she was unreachable, then maybe I’d take another trip to visit good old Uncle Asbj?rn and his den of depravity underneath Tivoli Gardens.
No matter what, I really had no choice but to take Seven with me. It wasn’t like I could just leave her here. She’d never been outside before now. I had to take responsibility for her. At least until I could get her somewhere out of Baxter’s reach.
But this all hinged on us actually finding a way out of this fucking never-ending forest.
Well, nothing could be done until she woke up. All I could do right now was wait. I couldn’t go back inside that cabin while she was sleeping on that mattress, the only bed we had.
The monster’s pull to her was strong, and I wasn’t giving in to him and his stupid base urges and his stupid talk of fucking, and biting, and Joining. I wasn’t putting myself through that shit. No warm pussy was worth the pain I’d seen Blaire in.
So I didn’t go back inside.
I sat on the porch, leaning my head against the weathered timbers of the cabin, and I proved to the monster inside me that I was in charge.
For now .
I shivered.
I didn’t sleep. The moon set, and dawn crept over the forest, over the clearing, and I wasn’t tired.
No, I was wired.
Every inhale smelled of her.
My stomach grumbled insistently.
We hunt, we provide for her , the monster told me.
We don’t fucking leave this porch, you dick. I don’t care how hungry you are or how much you wanna caveman all over her by bringing home a fucking animal pelt and raw meat. If she wakes up and we’re not here, she will freak the fuck out.
Interesting, how much you seem to care about her feelings , the monster mused.
Fuck off, you—
My skin flashed with heat. My pulse thrummed.
Blood rushed south so fast I felt dizzy.
My dick swelled.
What the fuck?
How was I so suddenly, so fucking violently aroused?
She dreams of you , the monster told me smugly. The blood calls.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, staring down at my raging erection, tenting the filthy jumpsuit.
A moan echoed from inside the cabin. I shot harder with an aching need for friction, to relieve the agonizing pressure.
“Shit. Fuck.”
Go to her. Join with her. Bite and fuck her.
I stood.
But instead of heading through the door and giving into the insane urge, I staggered off the porch, around the back of the cabin, ignoring the thwarted fury the monster was thrashing with inside my skull.
A cold shower. That was all I could think about. To douse this insane desire with icy water.
The rusty pipes groaned and shuddered. I groaned and shuddered because the ache was almost unbearable. I palmed myself through my clothing. My dick jerked against my hand.
You know what you should do …
Fuck. The Hell. Off.
Her moan echoed in my head.
Water burst out in a brown explosion. I barely waited for it to run clear before I stepped under, gasping as the icy water drenched me. I hadn’t even bothered to remove my jumpsuit. It was fucking filthy anyway.
I was fucking filthy.
Because even sluiced with freezing water, my cock pulsed insistently.
And all I could think about was the smell of her warm, aroused pussy, in that room, with fucking Baxter watching on.
And how, if the lights hadn’t gone out, and everything hadn’t suddenly become about our frantic escape, I probably would have fallen on her, tasted that pussy, and buried my mouth deep in it.
And then, when she was moaning and writhing and fucking begging, I would have buried my dick in her.
I unzipped the front of my jumpsuit, peeling it off with hands that shook. My cock sprang free as I wrestled the wet fabric down my legs.
I was never getting rid of this rager without blowing a load.
Resting my head against the timber siding of the cabin, I admitted defeat, wrapping my fist around myself and pumping. The growl that erupted from my throat at the first stroke was so animal that for a second, I thought the monster had taken control of me again.
But no. I was the fucking animal.
I was about a minute and a half from coming all over the side of this cabin, with the smell of her pussy fresh in my memory.
A sharp gasp shocked my attention from my rising pleasure, my eyes darting towards the sound.
It was her.
Eyes wide. Locked on my swollen cock. On the jerky movements of my fist.
I couldn’t stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
The monster’s laugh was victorious as my control slipped for just long enough for him to surge in …
He squeezed our cock, ran our thumb over the tip, then thrust our hips, fucking our fist.
Our eyes feasted on her.