Chapter 10 - Lash
Every few miles, I pause to let out a long call for my pack.
But I have no idea where we are. The terrain is different from what I’m used to. Lush trees and undergrowth fight my progress whenever I try to veer from the decaying roads.
Heavy humidity slows my steps as well.
We have to be deep in the southeast area of the country, not the cool forests outside of Portland where I used to live.
Yet, I still offer a howl in hopes of finding a group of wolves like me.
It’s the unexpected code that grew in the years after the virus. Our kind normally won’t fight amongst ourselves unless it’s a direct power play.
The rules weren’t as clear when we were humans.
Ironic that we get along better as beasts.
“Wait. There’s fruit.” Her small voice comes out irregularly, jarred by my rapid steps.
“We’ll eat later.” Invigorations from her flesh still runs through my veins. I could run another hundred miles without tiring.
“Every time I heal, it robs me. Don’t you get it? If I don’t eat, I get too weak.” She balls her fists to beat her knuckles over mine, pointing to where my claws rake her ribs as I hug her against my chest.
With a growl, I slow to a stop beneath a lush peach tree, the boughs weighing down with heavy fruit.
Her tattered clothes hang in ruins on her supple body, threads after my sharp nails tore them apart.
All in search of her.
My cock hardens watching her reach for the succulent pink globes. It protrudes from the tip of my sheath watching the juices spill down her lips to drip from her chin.
“If we find another pack—” I tread closer, dropping to all fours while my nostrils flare with the sweet scent of her meal. “—you don’t smell nearly enough like me. They’ll know we aren’t bonded…yet.” My throbbing length bobs fully against my belly, beckoning her.
When her nose wrinkles, anger floods through me, matching the lust burning in my loins.
“And if I don’t want to? Maybe one of them will be nicer.” She raises her arm and flings an over-ripe peach at me, bouncing it off my shoulder.
Stepping behind the trunk, she takes another bite with narrowed blue eyes.
“Then why does your pussy scream out in need to me?” I will get her, we both know it. “Why is it as wet as that treat you feast upon?” Another slow step towards her makes her shift to keep the roughly barked tree between us.
“I can’t help it. It isn’t for you,” she mumbles with a full mouth.
Jealousy tightens my chest. “Your cuck?”
That useless man stood by and watched me take what I wanted from her.
Her wild blonde hair strays across her cheek as she shakes her head.
Hmm. Interesting.
Sitting back on my haunches, I trace the stiff length of my cock with the pads of my fingers. “You’re mated, to one like me?”
I find that hard to believe. There wasn’t any smell of another on her.
It would be impossible to hide.
She flicks her wrist to toss the pit into the grass, then reaches for another branch. “It was a long time ago.”
Her voice carries tones of reverence. Almost wistful.
I’ll kill him to claim her.
“Where is he?” My hackles raise on their own as the blood rages hot within me.
Her brows raise, along with the corner of her sticky mouth. “Boise. But he’s dead.”
My tongue runs over my canines, relishing this new morsel of information.
Raising to my full height, I can’t resist the urge to howl in unrepentant ecstasy at this revelation.
In the distance, a willowy reply echoes from the hills.
Her eyes focus on my engorged erection, arousal exploding her pupils to pools of obsidian.
“Then you’re mine.” Dropping to the ground, I stalk her around the trunk.
“Just because you take it, doesn’t make it yours,” she bites back, lunging to keep out of my reach.
Another nearly rotten missile splatters sickly-sweet mash against my fur.
“I’ll keep taking it until you drown with my seed,” I growl. My claws dig into the earth, jettisoning me in a rapid charge.
Swiping across her dancing back leaves rows of flayed flesh, but she parries her body in a sanguine twist into a thicket of heavy brush.
“I’m going to kill you the first chance I get!” she screams, hidden behind the lush foliage. “It’s what I did to the last monster to take what wasn’t his!”
Blood and fermentation overwhelm my senses, drowning the addictive perfume of her.
So that’s how he died.
Her brain rebelled against the desires of her body.
She did it once. She’ll do it again.
I can force the bond through her womb, but that nudge of doubt will always exist that she would turn on me as well.
My ears swivel on my head, tracking her clumsy advances through the bushes.
She won’t escape.
Yet…I pause.
Her powers are tantalizing. And bringing her back to my pack would earn me the role of alpha, uncontested.
Immortality. Unparalleled healing.
A brood of my own, maybe even some that pass for human enough to infiltrate the towns.
Or convince them to a truce.
I can’t do that if she’s either fleeing or trying to take me out every time I turn my back.
“What will keep you loyal to me alone?” Pacing along the edge, I track her pinpoint and scent that stays centered in the mass of brambles.
She snorts. “You’re fucking joking, right?”
“Tell me.” My chest rumbles. “Or maybe I’ll just lock you away myself.”
I don’t know how that would work. Most of my kind are full dogs.
Their ability to build is limited. I’m sure I’d figure something out.
“Then I’ll kill myself.” Her words come out almost a whisper. “I’m not going to be trapped again. Ever.”
That drops me to the ground.
Fur covers my body, claws adorn my hands and feet, teeth the length of daggers sprout from my muzzle, but my heart still remembers what it was like to be human.
There was a time when I was young, before the virus changed me, that I went to jail for a bar fight.
I swore I’d never forget having my will and freedom taken away. My sentence was only a few weeks, yet the lesson clung to me for years.
“Fine. No cages,” I grunt. “But you’re still mine. Tell me what you want.”
“I’m not negotiating this! Leave me alone!” A rock sails from the trees to land yards away.
“There’s a pack coming in. They’ll be here in a few hours. Maybe they’ll make a deal, if they can even talk.” I dislike the idea of anyone else touching her.
I’d never let it happen.
She doesn’t need to know that.
Letting her stew in silence is a test in my patience I didn’t know I had.
After enough time has passed that my cock has softened back into its pocket, she finally emerges.
Fresh nicks and scratches adorn her pale skin.
Two fingers extend from her hand. “These are my conditions.”
I don’t move from my lazy spread across the warm dirt.
Well, I may have twitched a nostril or turned an ear.
“First, stop fucking tearing me apart all the time. Growing parts back kicks my ass.” She waves her arm exaggeratedly over my head.
“Second, take me to my son. I want to live near him.” One palm rests on her bare hip as she peers down at me.
That makes me raise off my paws. “You have a child?”
“I killed his father while I was pregnant. I don’t fuck around.” Her nail nearly jabs between my eyes. “I shot him right there.”
Just as she had held her pistol on me.
Oddly, her passionate admission makes me admire her.
She’s fearless.
Curiosity gets the better of me. “Is he more man or beast?”
A tiny muscle under her lip twitches. “He’s a man. More than I can say about you.”
“Careful,” I murmur, pushing to my feet. “I’ll just keep eating your limbs off, remember?”
She furrows her brow into a scowl. “Deal or not? We work together, or I make your life hell?”
“We did work well together to escape that prison.” I let my lips pull back into a toothy grin, then lean close enough my whiskers tickle her neck. “You know I’ll still have to mark you.”
Her pulse intensifies, a rapid flutter that pounds the beat of her response before she makes it. “Yes.”
“Where is your son?” I just want a taste of the sweat that clings to her. One slow lick over the delicate bone of her collar to leave a pink line in the flesh from my rough tongue.
“Somewhere in Oregon. Washington.” Her voice stammers as her chin raises, exposing more of her tender throat.
“That’s a long way.” I won’t admit that’s the direction I need to go as well. “How will we find him? He could be in any of those towns.”
“He won’t be in a town,” she says firmly. “He won’t be around—”
Another howl interrupts her, this time much nearer.
The acrid scent of fear begins to ooze from her. Not of me, but this new threat drawing on us.
I won’t trust another beast near her until she’s truly mine.
“Climb on my back. We have a long way to go.” I’ll be able to run much faster now that I don’t have to worry about her trying to get away.
When her thighs wrap my waist and her fingers knot in my thick fur, it feels…different.
I’m not forcing her. She’s choosing to go with me.