Red (24 page)

~*~

Elodie

“
Rich and Molly disappeared
here.” I made a tiny X with my pen on the topographical map I’d
spread across the top of our makeshift table. “We found Rich here.”
I leaned over and made another X. “Neither of which is wholly
useful for locating this cabin because a vehicle was involved in
both cases. We need to know where Molly was found. That cave was in
walking distance of wherever they were kept. Neither of them could
have gotten too terribly far in the condition they were
in.”

Sawyer leaned in beside me. “Rich said it
was a cabin by the river. Which river?” He reached out and traced
his fingers over the myriad of tributaries that snaked through the
park.

I crossed my arms. “Rich isn’t the kind of
guy who would differentiate between a river and a stream and a
piddly little creek even under the best of circumstances. The
police combed the banks of the
actual
river and found
nothing, so I’m betting it’s along something smaller. They might
not have actually seen it, just heard the running water.”

“
Which narrows things down
to . . . oh, thirty or forty square miles or so?”

I bumped him with my shoulder. “Hey, power
of positive thinking. If we can narrow down where Molly was found,
it would help a lot. You were there when the call came in. Do you
remember anything of the call?”

“
Mostly just ‘We found
her.’ I was pretty focused on getting loose to come find
you.”

“
Think
,” I prompted.
“They would’ve been giving coordinates, saying something about
landmarks, trailheads,
anything
. Eileen would’ve had to
update the logs.”

He frowned, thinking. “I want to say I
remember something about Endicott. But that was probably one of the
searcher’s names.”

I leaned back over, studying the map. “Could
it have been Kennicott?”

“
Maybe.”

“
Kennicott Ridge is within
spitting distance of the Tennessee-North Carolina
border.”

“
How far is that?” he
asked.

“
Maybe thirty miles by car.
On foot, as the crow flies? Just under fifteen. Still within our
county. I think.”

“
You know, the fact that
you say that as if it’s a city block really scares me.”

“
Wuss,” I teased. “It gets
to be pretty rough country. It’d be a day of hard hiking to get
there. Two if we took our time. We’ve got ample supplies. If we
leave within the hour, we could get to the halfway point here,” I
tapped the map, “in plenty of time to relax and set up camp before
sunrise.”

“
You want to travel by
night?”

“
Why not? We avoid running
into any other hikers, and let’s face it. We’re awake. What else
are we doing to do all night?”

His face shifted and I quickly laid a finger
over his lips.

“
Don’t answer
that.”

He chuckled and leaned back over to peer at
the map. “Bristol Falls?” he asked.

“
Nature’s
shower.”

“
Hey, what’re you trying to
say?”

“
That I’d love to get clean
and it’s a beautiful place to do so.”

Sawyer linked his hands behind my back, eyes
going gold. “So tell me, Miss Prepared, did you pack a bikini in
all of your get away gear?”

“
Wouldn’t you like to
know?” Of course I had. But it was fun to tease him, to see that
wolfish grin curve his lips and feel the accompanying heat thrown
off by his body as he tugged me closer with a playful
growl.

He nipped at my throat and made my knees go
weak. Before my resolve could follow, I pulled away, though my hand
lingered in the soft waves of his hair. “Time to pack.”

“
Slave driver. Just for
that, we’ll do more reflex training on the way, as
payback.”

“
Great. So you can whap me
in the head with more aluminum plates?” The surprise lesson at the
river during dish duty had not gone well.

“
You’re suppressing your
wolf, so you’re not getting access to all of your senses. You’ve
got to stop being afraid of it.”

I began sorting supplies for a multi-day
hike. That was easy for him to say. For him this was totally
normal, not a sign he was becoming the devil incarnate. For me . .
. Well it was one thing to accept that I didn’t have to kill
myself. I hadn’t wanted to do that in the first place. But moving
past years of false belief, years of
fear
was something else
entirely.

Sawyer moved behind me, running his hands
down my arms to capture my hands and wrapping himself around me in
a move that left me goosebumply and aching for him.

“
You stopped being afraid
of me,” he said softly.

“
I was never afraid of you
specifically. I’m terrified of how you make me feel.”

“
And how is that?” he
asked.

“
Electrified,” I said
breathlessly. “And wolfish. When I’m with you I want—” Needs and
desires tangled my tongue, and my skin, where he touched it, was on
fire.

“
What do you want?” he
asked, lips against my throat.

“
You,” I whispered, closing
my eyes to ride the sensation. “Just you.”

He was my ultimate forbidden fruit. And if
what he’d told me was true, he wasn’t forbidden anymore. If he’d
turned me then, if he’d kissed me, I think I’d have been lost.
Thankfully at least one of us had some self-restraint.

With no small amount of effort, he set me
away from him. I didn’t turn to look at him. When he spoke, his
voice was ragged. “We have to go.”

It was obvious enough that if we didn’t,
what control he had left was going to slip as well. I swallowed
hard, though it did nothing to wet my parched throat. “Maybe you
could go pack up the camp stove.” Which was outside.

Sawyer walked out without another word.
Which was totally fine. Because if he’d spoken again, the sound of
his voice might have overcome the reservations that were hanging on
by mere fingernails, and this was so not the time for that. I knew
he wasn’t angry. I could smell that much. We both just needed a
little time to find our equilibrium again.

Right. Equilibrium. That was it.

I was starting to understand exactly how my
ancestors had gotten into trouble. If they’d felt a fraction of
this kind of desire, this
need
, it was easy to see how sense
had been over ridden. Because in the moment, nothing else mattered
but the heat.

Hoo boy.

Packing didn’t take long. Both of us were
motivated to get going and work off this frustration. Or maybe just
to get to the falls and get under that icy water. Nature’s
cold
shower.

We hit the trail with the white elephant of
our attraction stomping between us. I threw myself into the hike,
setting a pace that most people would have difficulty matching.
Sawyer, of course, was right behind. We marched up hill, over dale,
until my legs screamed for relief and my shoulders started to
cramp. Then it wasn’t just my shoulders, but my back and my legs,
until I fell to my knees in a full body Charlie horse.

“
Elodie.” Sawyer was there,
pulling off my pack. “Breathe,” he ordered.

But I couldn’t breathe. I curled my body,
trying to stop the siege on my muscles, but it fought against me,
arching back so hard, I cried out.

“
You gotta breathe.” His
hand grabbed mine, and I clamped on, as another spasm
hit.

I rolled my head and saw the muscle in my
shoulder swell and writhe like a snake beneath my skin. A keening
noise built in my throat. It spilled out on the next wave as my
legs jack-knifed and slammed into the ground. I curled, rolled to
my hands and knees, retching, though nothing came up. It felt like
my vocal chords were stretching, straining, breaking.

Then it was over as suddenly as it had
begun. I lay panting, on the ground, my hand still clamped around
Sawyer’s. My cheek was pressed against his thigh, and he stroked my
hair back from my face.

“
What the fuck was that?” I
wheezed.

“
Body cramp. I didn’t think
you’d be getting those yet. They’ll start coming more often the
closer you get to shifting. It’ll get worse before it gets better,
I’m afraid.”

“
Greeeeeeeat.” I lay there
until my harsh breathing evened out. “Is shifting always like
that?”

“
No. Eventually it gets
easy. More like a full body stretch than . . . ” He seemed to
search for a word..

“
Labor,” I
supplied.

“
Huh?”

“
It’s like labor. Giving
birth from one form to another.”

Even from upside down in the moonlight, I
could see the vaguely queasy expression on his face at that
comparison. Typical guy.

“
You okay?” he
asked.

Obviously he wasn’t gonna touch that one
with a ten foot pole.

I took inventory. My muscles seemed to be
more or less back to the size and shape they were supposed to be. I
guessed I was done with the freak routine for a while. But
everything ached. “I hurt. There’s ibuprofen in my pack.”

“
Of course there is.
Where?”

“
Top left side
pouch.”

He leaned over and rummaged around, grabbing
the painkillers. He helped me to sit up and handed me three pills
and a canteen. “Prescription dose. You’re gonna need it.”

I knocked them back, then just sat. “Shit,
that takes a lot out of you.”

Behind me Sawyer put his hands on my
shoulders, big, strong fingers digging into knots of muscle. I let
out an incoherent groan. I kept waiting for the heat, for a
different kind of knots, but this wasn’t sexy, just straight up
therapeutic. And that was . . . a relief. Like I was finally free
of the chokehold of desire. For now.

“
So if you decide college
isn’t for you, your future career as masseuse is pretty well
set.”

“
Exercise helps too. I ran
miles every day during the months of my transition.”

He moved on to my left arm, kneading from
the biceps all the way down to my forearm and fingers.

“
Months?” I said. “How long
does it usually take?”

“
From the time the first
symptoms appear? Six to eight months?”

“
Six to eight
months?
But I don’t understand. I’ve only had symptoms for,
like, a
month
. Since right before my birthday.”

“
Huh.” He moved on to my
right arm. “Well, I have a theory.”

“
By all means, enlighten
me, Obi-Wan.”

“
I don’t want you to feel
weird or pressured or anything.”

“
Okaaaaay.” Where was he
going with this?

“
Werewolf transition is a
lot like human puberty.”

“
Gawkiness, hormones, and
ridiculously unfair acne?”

“
Transition means we’re of
mate-able age.”

“
Ma—Oh.”

Sawyer’s hands stilled on my shoulders, then
fell away. “You’ve spent so much time . . . cloistered, avoiding
that part of things because of all the rules and your false
beliefs, I think you kind of unnaturally delayed a normal
transition. And then I showed up.”

“
And then you showed up.
What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, turning to look
at him.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, not quite
looking at me. “Once your transition actually started, I think I
accelerated it.”

“
I don’t understand.
How?”

“
You remember how I said
being around you quieted my beast?”

“
Yeah?”

“
That would only happen
under one condition.”

Why was he beating around the bush? “And
that is?” I prompted, waving my hand.

He took a breath and met my eyes. “Because
you’re my mate.”

My mouth opened. Closed again.

“
Wolves tend to mate for
life,” I heard myself say.

“
Yeah.” He seemed wary, as
if waiting for me to freak out.

Mates. My brain circled around the idea,
turning it over like a new taste on my tongue. I was his. He was
mine. And if I understood him correctly, he was implying that my
delayed change was now happening faster because I’d found him. As
if the dam holding things back had broken, and now things were
happening in a flash flood because my wolf recognized him for what
and who he was, even if the rest of me hadn’t quite caught up.

“
Well that explains a
lot.”

Sawyer let out the breath he was holding in
a whoosh.

I thought of Mom and that lightning strike,
love-at-first sight of Dad. “So if we hadn’t been under the
impression that Dad should be getting me to a nunnery, would I have
fixated on some human guy and started my transition early? Or at
the normal time or whatever?”

“
I don’t know. Your family
is the only one I’ve heard of that mated consistently outside
wolfkind. Maybe that was due to an absence of suitable males. Maybe
not. But you told me about how lots of your ancestors kind of went
crazy. And I think that’s why. We’re genetically meant to mate with
our own species.”

“
What, like mating with
humans is like marrying your cousin for several generations kind of
crazy?”

His mouth curved a little. “No. It’s a
control mechanism. When we’re young, our wolves are tempered by the
mated pairing of our parents. Once we’re past transition, they’re
tempered by our mates. So as you settle my wolf, I should, in
theory, also settle yours. Your control should be better with
me.”