Seventeen
Wyatt
Icouldn’t sleep. i was bone-tired, exhausted even, but sleep slipped through my fingers every time i closed my eyes. i tossed and turned. i shucked off the sheets. i threw off my clothes.
I tried counting sheep. Singing lullabies.
If I’d remembered where I put my phone, I would have pulled it out and tried listening to white noise or something, but as it was, all I could hear was the wind sighing outside the ranch house, maybe the occasional notes of frog song from the pond on the other side of the driveway.
I knew I needed to sleep. Tomorrow—or today, rather, since it was already long past midnight—I’d need to go check on the calves at Jed’s. And who knew what else I’d be called to do. It was spring, and all the animals in Coyote Creek were busy with their offspring.
But try as I might, I couldn’t drift off. My skin felt like it was on fire, crawling with an itch I couldn’t scratch—one named Cam. I knew the only thing that would satisfy me would be his claws on me, his lips on my skin, his cock—
Okay, that’s enough of that, I thought. I wondered if I had any tranqs in my kit in the car. That would knock me out for a bit.
I was just pondering if I should go out and check when the crunch of gravel made me freeze. I tilted my head a little, listening.
There was something outside on the driveway. My heart beat a little faster.
Maybe just a skunk or something, I told myself. Or maybe it was one of the brothers. I was in a house full of coyote shifters, after all. Even if Cal and Cam had gone to bed, maybe the twins had shifted and were out frolicking. That seemed like something a couple of teenage shapeshifters would do.
A howl near the house made my blood freeze. I lay perfectly still on the bed, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.
“What the hell!” someone shouted upstairs.
There was clattering and a click, followed by footsteps on the stairs. Light flooded down the hall, creeping in under the guest room door.
“The fuck!” That was Cal, bellowing as he slammed open the front door.
I rolled off my bed and slunk to the window, popping up under the curtains just in time to see the wolf—the same wolf I’d seen at Jed’s yesterday.
He wasn’t a gray wolf, as far as I could tell—he was too small, and even in the darkness, I could tell his coat was reddish. Equally, he wasn’t a coyote—he was too big, a wolf through and through.
The yard lights flooded the area near the door. “Go on!” I heard Cal barking. “Get on out of here!”
The wolf paused for a second, then turned tail and dashed past the garage and the shed, before disappearing into the ditch along the laneway. I clutched at the windowsill for a little longer, before slowly pulling away.
The door banged open. “Are you okay?” Cam asked, his eyes wide and wild.
I blinked at him. “Huh?”
He stormed into the room, slamming the door behind him. “Are you okay?” he repeated as he marched up to me, clapping his hands on my shoulders, like he wanted to shake me.
“Uh, yeah?” Honestly, I didn’t like that I’d seen this wolf twice now, nor that it had been so close to the house, but it wasn’t like I’d been outside and it had attacked me or anything.
“Good,” Cam said, slowly releasing me. I realized he was trembling.
I glanced up at his face. “You guys have trouble with the wolf before?” I asked.
Cam shook his head, dashing my theory that there was some story here. “Never seen him before,” he said. He peered at the window for a moment.
I cleared my throat. “I saw him,” I said softly, and Cam whipped around. His eyes almost seemed to glow.
“Where?”
I shrank back toward the bed. “Today. Up at Jed’s.”
Cam’s face transformed with a snarl; he looked positively feral, eyes flashing dangerously in the dark. My heart picked up its pace again, and my breath came short.
There was a soft rap at the door, and Cal poked his nose into the room. “Everything all good in here?” he asked.
“Out,” Cam practically growled, and Cal reared back.
“Okay,” the elder Carlyle brother said, lifting his hands and backing out of the room. Cam was practically growling at him; if he’d been in his coyote form, his fur would have been on end. As it was, he took a step past me, toward Cal.
Cal’s eyes jumped; whatever he saw on Cam’s face made him grab the doorknob. “All right, all right,” he said, “I’m going.”
With that, he closed the door, shutting me in with Cam.
Cam stood there for a moment, glaring at the door. Finally, he swung back around, gaze seeking mine. “The wolf,” he said, his voice low.
I inhaled through my nose, and I had to admit, it wasn’t all fear punching my buttons. “Right,” I managed, trying to think of what we’d been talking about. “I saw him at Jed’s yesterday.”
Cam paced back across the room, grabbing my hands. “Did he do anything? Did he say anything?”
I almost laughed at the thought of a wolf talking to me, then sobered when I remembered I was talking to a man who could turn into a coyote. Clearly, Cam figured the wolf was a shifter. “No. We just looked at each other for a split second, and then he took off.”
Cam gripped my hands a little harder, twining our fingers. I swore my heart skipped a beat. On my next day off, I was heading to a doctor to get an exam. Hearts weren’t supposed to do a lot of what mine was doing right now, I was pretty sure.
“He didn’t approach you or hurt you or anything?”
I shook my head. “No. Like I said, we just looked at each other, and then he took off.”
Cam pressed his lips together, gaze lifting back to the window. He was silent for a long time, and almost all I could hear was the thundering of my heart, anxiously awaiting the next move.
“Wyatt,” Cam said at last, and I swore I nearly swooned into his arms at the sound. No one had ever said my name like that before.
“Y-yeah?” God, why was I so lightheaded?
“I want to mark you.”
I blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the fog from my head. “Sure,” I offered, smiling at him. “I don’t mind bruises.”
What the hell was I saying? I’d never even watched that kind of porn. I had no idea if I was into it or not.
If it was Cam, though … I was pretty sure I’d be into anything he wanted to do.
Well. Maybe not anything. There were probably some lines I wouldn’t be willing to cross.
Cam shook his head. “No, Wyatt,” he started, then paused. He gave my hands a squeeze and took a sharp breath. “I want to claim you.”
Something in my blood thrilled, this weird fluttery sensation that made me feel like I was going to faint. “Sure?”
Cam stared at me for a second or two, then shook his head again. “You’re not getting it,” he muttered.
I huffed, almost offended, although, to be perfectly fair, I was pretty sure I wasn’t getting it either.
I let him lead me to the bed, where we both plonked down on the mattress. Cam didn’t let go of my hands. “My aunts,” Cam started.
I quirked a brow. His expression soured. “Okay, bad place to start,” he said. “But—shifters. Uh. When we … get together …” He waved a hand.
I folded my arms. “Out with it, Cameron.”
Was it me, or had his cheeks turned a little pink? It was hard to tell in the dim light from outside. The moon was bright, but it was blocked by the curtains.
“Uh.” He scratched the back of his head. “We, uh … bite each other.”
“Okay,” I drawled. “So you guys are a bit kinky.”
Cam exhaled in exasperation. “It’s not—it’s a mark.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not like—no, okay, I’m explaining this badly.”
He really was. I sat there with my arms folded, waiting. Finally, he said, “It’s a bond. When we bite each other, we call it claiming, and it creates a bond between the partners.”
I still didn’t see his point, but he didn’t continue. “And …?”
“It binds us. For life.”
“Oh,” I said softly, unable to summon much more than that. I didn’t know much about shifters at all, except that they could turn into animals, except that Cam and his family were shifters.
I’d always thought shapeshifters were fairy-tale stuff, myths. Yet here was living proof standing right in front of me, and I’d seen him do it. I’d seen him transform before my eyes.
Who said there couldn’t be magical bites that created magic forever bonds between people?
Actually, come to think of it, what was to rule out fated mates or soulmates or whatever the hell Cam’s aunts had been trying to sell us on?
I shook my head. Cam must have seen it—he probably had better night vision than me—because he said, “It’s okay. I don’t want to rush you or—”
I shifted forward, taking his hands. “I’d really like that.” The words were almost a whisper, like I was ashamed to admit it or something.
But it did sound nice. Being bonded to Cam—being bound to him, or claimed, or whatever he wanted to call it.
Fated mates, or whatever, sure sounded better than the hellish world of dating apps and hookups in gay bars that I had left behind in the city, and it had to be better than whatever passed for a gay dating scene in Coyote Creek.
“Would you?” His fingers ghosted by my ear, brushing back a lock of hair.
“Yeah.” I nodded, leaning forward into him as he leaned toward me.
I tilted my head, and our lips met, almost hesitantly, especially compared to what we’d been doing just the night before. I sighed as Cam pulled back.
“Are you really sure?” he asked, stroking a finger down my cheek.
It might have sounded crazy. In fact, I was sure it would have, in almost any other context. I’d only known the guy for maybe two weeks, tops, and last night, I’d been convinced what we were doing was simply having a hookup.
I didn’t know what had changed. Finding out about shifters? Was I buying into the fated mates theory Caroline and Karla had floated at the table?
It didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, I felt, with burning certainty, that this was right. Cam was the one for me—now and for always.
“I’m sure,” I told him simply, turning my head to kiss his fingertips as he stroked my cheek again.
He pushed me back. “Wyatt, I’m serious. This is no joke, it’s—”
“I’m not joking either, Cam.” I grabbed his wrist, pulling him in until we were nose to nose. “Go ahead. Bite me.”